FRANCE
Downgraded rating held
Standard and Poor’s held to a downgraded “AA+” rating for France and said the outlook remained negative yesterday, four days after Moody’s cut its top rating for the country by one notch and warned that more could come. S&P, which downgraded France from top notch in January, referring to recent French announcements on the economy, said although the government was “determined to carry out budgetary and structural reforms” France’s long-term outlook was “negative.”
BANKING
Seoul defiant over damages
South Korea said it would “aggressively” defend itself on Thursday after a US private equity firm initiated arbitration of a damages claim arising from the sale of its stake in the Korean Exchange Bank (KEB), which it bought in 2003. Texas-based Lone Star Funds said on Wednesday it had filed for arbitration with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes in Washington, becoming the first firm to invoke a clause in a free trade agreement between the countries.
ENERGY
BP, Rosneft clinch deal
British oil major BP and Russian group Rosneft said on Thursday that they have signed a final agreement on the sale by BP to Rosneft of half of the third biggest Russian oil company, TNK-BP, as part of a major shift in strategy by the British company. The deal is still subject to approval by regulatory authorities and should be completed “in the first half of 2013,” a BP statement said. Once all parts of the complex transaction have been finalized, Rosneft is set to become one of the world’s biggest oil companies while BP stands to gain crucial access to Arctic oil reserves.
MINING
Codelco profits increase
Chile’s state-owned mining company Codelco said on Thursday its January-September profits rose 27 percent over the same period last year, boosted by the settlement of a long-running feud with British miner Anglo American PLC over control of a promising copper mine. The world’s largest copper company said on Thursday it earned US$6.77 billion before taxes versus US$5.32 billion in the same period a year ago. Chief executive Thomas Keller told reporters the miner produced 1.188 million tonnes of copper, 5 percent less than the 1.25 million tonnes a year earlier due to dwindling ore grades.
SINGAPORE
October inflation slows
Singapore’s inflation slowed last month as gains in food and housing costs eased, reducing pressure on the central bank to tighten monetary policy. The consumer price index rose 4 percent from a year earlier, the Department of Statistics said in a statement yesterday. The median estimate of 19 economists in a Bloomberg News survey was for a 4.5 percent increase, after a 4.7 percent pace reported earlier for September. The October core inflation rate was 2.2 percent.
FRANCE
Industrial confidence climbs
French industrial confidence climbed from the lowest in more than three years after French President Francois Hollande unveiled a payroll tax cut for businesses that will go into effect next year. Sentiment among factory executives rose to 88 this month after falling to 85 in October, national statistics office Insee said in a statement yesterday. Economists had expected a reading of 87, according to the median of 19 forecasts.
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last