AUTOMOBILES
Slovakia bucks euro trend
Slovakia’s auto sector is speeding into high gear despite eurozone’s hard times, making it the world’s top per capita carmaker and fueling the best growth in the crisis-struck 17-nation currency bloc. While leading French automaker PSA Peugeot Citroen recently announced it was shutting a plant and slashing 8,000 jobs at home, the company’s Slovak branch has hired 900 new workers. Plans call for overall production to soar to 780,000 vehicles this year from 639,763 last year, despite gloomy growth forecasts for much of Europe. The automotive sector employs almost 72,000 people out of the country’s 5.4 million people and accounts for 39 percent of total Slovak output.
VENEZUELA
Currency controls loosened
Caracas will allow the opening of foreign currency bank accounts, the central bank said. The move, announced on Friday in the Official Gazette, applies to both individuals and companies. “It simplifies the system,” Central Bank director Armando Leon told the newspaper El Universal. The measure is also aimed at foreign firms involved in public projects. The government has had strict foreign exchange controls since 2003 and regulates access to US dollars. Funds may be withdrawn in bolivars, the local currency, at the official rate, the central bank said.
VIETNAM
State firms to be revamped
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung approved proposals to boost the competitiveness and profit margins of state companies, according to a posting on the government Web site. Selling shares in some state companies will be a “key task” during the period from now until 2015, according to the restructuring plan. Some companies, such as those classified as important to national defense or economic production, will remain under full government control, according to the proposals. State companies facing financial difficulties are to “focus resources on core business activities” and clarify management responsibilities, the plan states. Strengthening the performance of state companies would require “decisive measures,” according to an IMF report this month.
TRAVEL
Summit opens in Boston
The Global Business Travel Association convention, which began yesterday in Boston, Massachusetts, will bring together thousands of travel industry leaders, suppliers and managers to discuss challenges, policy trends and potential profit areas during the annual convention. The four-day convention, which runs through to Wednesday, will also feature keynote addresses from former US presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton tomorrow and on Wednesday respectively. Clinton previously spoke at the convention in 2009.
TRADE
China appeals WTO ruling
China has appealed a WTO panel’s finding that it has been unfairly imposing tariffs on a high-tech US steel product. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in a statement posted on its Web site late on Friday that the WTO panel’s report, issued last month, failed to properly interpret relevant regulations. China asked a WTO appellate body to review the report. The US lodged a complaint in 2010 that challenged Chinese tariffs on US-made grain-oriented flat-rolled electrical steel. China says it imposed the tariffs because US “Buy American” provisions and state government procurement laws amount to a subsidy.
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
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
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