JAPAN
Trade deficit widens
The trade deficit widened to ¥520 billion (US$6.5 billion) last month from a ¥478 billion deficit a year earlier as oil and gas imports surged after the nuclear crisis, the government said yesterday. Separately, the Bank of Japan yesterday left its key interest rate unchanged at near zero to support growth, as widely expected. The country earlier this year reported its biggest annual trade deficit ever for the fiscal year ending March. Exports grew nearly 8 percent last month from a year earlier on the back of recovery from the disaster, but imports also grew, rising 8 percent.
BANKING
Banks on downgrade watch
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc’s main banking units and those of Japan’s largest lending groups were put on watch for a one-level downgrade by Fitch Ratings, after cutting the nation’s sovereign-credit rating. Banking entities under Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc, the country’s second-biggest lender, and Mizuho Financial Group Inc, the third biggest, were put on watch, Fitch said in a statement after lowering Japan by two levels to “A+” on Tuesday.
SOFTWARE
SAP buys Ariba
German business software giant SAP said on Tuesday it was acquiring US cloud-based e-commerce firm Ariba for US$4.3 billion, in a move boosting its arsenal against archrival Oracle. The companies said the acquisition would help combine Ariba’s successful buyer-seller collaboration network with SAP’s broad customer base. The Ariba board of directors has unanimously approved the deal, which offers a 20 percent premium to Monday’s closing price.
AUTOMAKERS
Mazda, Fiat build sports car
Japanese automaker Mazda Motor and Italy’s Fiat said yesterday that they have agreed to jointly produce a new two-seater sports car as part of a technology and product development alliance. The vehicle, which will use Mazda’s next-generation rear-wheel-drive technology, is to be sold under the Mazda and Alfa Romeo brands, the latter owned by Fiat, with some differences including an engine unique to each. Both are to be made in the southern Japanese city of Hiroshima, with production on the Alfa Romeo brand car scheduled to begin by 2015, they added.
LUXURY BRANDS
Burberry expands
British luxury brand Burberry posted a 26 percent jump in profit, as expected, and said it would invest up to £200 million (US$314 million) in new outlets and expanding existing stores in London, Chicago and Hong Kong. The company said yesterday it made an underlying pretax profit of £376 million in the year to March 31. Revenue rose 24 percent to almost £1.9 billion. Burberry said yesterday that it planned to increase retail selling space by 12 percent to 14 percent in the coming year, shifting to larger format stores and opening about 15 new outlets.
COMPUTERS
Lenovo posts record sales
Lenovo Group (聯想), the world’s second-largest PC maker, said yesterday its quarterly profit rose 59 percent over a year earlier on record sales. Profit for the first three months was US$67 million, or US$0.65 per share, the company announced. Quarterly sales rose 54 percent to US$7.5 billion. For the full year ending in March, Lenovo said profit rose 73 percent to US$473 million, on a 37 percent increase in sales to US$29.6 billion.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last