FOREIGN EXCHANGE
Australia to trade yuan
China will start direct trading between the yuan and the Australian dollar from tomorrow, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said. Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd and Westpac Banking Corp have been approved by the People’s Bank of China as market makers for the direct trading of the currencies, Gillard said at a press conference in Shanghai yesterday. A formal announcement of the plan, which will see the Australian dollar become the third major currency allowed to have direct trading links with the yuan, will be made today, she said.
JAPAN
Accounts log monthly surplus
Authorities posted the nation’s first current account surplus in four months in February, reflecting narrower trade deficits and robust income receipts from investments overseas, government data showed yesterday. The current account balance, the broadest measure of the nation’s trade with the rest of the world covering trade in goods, services, tourism and investment, logged a surplus of ¥637.4 billion (US$6.5 billion) in February. The monthly surplus nearly halved from the year-before surplus of ¥1.2 trillion, but reversed the deficit of ¥364.8 billion in January, data showed.
PORTUGAL
PM calls for spending cuts
Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho called for severe cuts in public spending after a court rejected a number of austerity measures, as the EU warned the debt-hit nation to respect the aims of its international bailout. In an address to the nation on Sunday night, Coelho said there would be no new tax hikes this year, but that measures would be taken to “contain public spending in the areas of social security, health and education.” He did not go into details of the anticipated cuts. His government has been involved in seeking to slash public expenditure by 4 billion euros (US$5.2 billion) by 2015.
SPORTS
Aon to sponsor football club
Insurer Aon is to sponsor Manchester United’s training kit and have its name attached to the club’s training ground under a new eight-year agreement announced yesterday. It is the first time United have sold naming rights to their training ground in Carrington on the outskirts of Manchester in northern England. The facility will be called the Aon Training Complex under the agreement that begins in July.
BANKING
Aquisition deal announced
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc, Japan’s biggest bank, agreed to acquire about US$3.7 billion of property loan assets from Deutsche Bank AG to boost its commercial lending on the US east coast. Mitsubishi UFJ’s UnionBanCal Corp unit is to acquire a commercial real estate lending portfolio from PB Capital Corp, a unit of the German bank, it said in a statement yesterday. The transaction is expected to be completed in the second quarter.
BANKING
Rogue trader to join firm
Nick Leeson, the rogue trader whose wrong-way bets on Japanese stocks ruined Barings PLC, is joining GDP Partnership to help advise Irish borrowers seeking to re-negotiate debts with their banks in the wake of the real-estate bubble collapse. Leeson, who has lived in Ireland for more than 10 years, is to join GDP as a principal as it expands into Dublin, the company said in a statement tweeted by Leeson.
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