SOUTH KOREA
Unemployment rate falls
The country’s unemployment rate fell last month after a number of jobseekers left the market for further education or stopped looking for work, state data showed yesterday. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stood at 3.2 percent last month, compared with 3.5 percent in February and 3.4 percent a year ago, state-run Statistics Korea said. Unadjusted, the jobless rate was 3.5 percent last month, down from 4 percent in February.
AUTOMAKERS
GM back on Facebook
General Motors Co (GM) is returning to Facebook. The automaker pulled its ads from the social media giant in May last year, just days before Facebook’s initial public offering, saying the ads were not effective and did not justify the US$10 million per year it was spending. However, on Tuesday, Chevrolet’s US marketing chief Chris Perry said GM is introducing mobile-only Facebook ads for the Chevrolet Sonic subcompact car. He did not reveal any details about the ads or say how much GM is spending.
INDIA
Car sales down 6.7%
The nation’s passenger car sales shrank for the first time in a decade, falling 6.7 percent in the year to last month, hit by a slowing economy and high interest rates, a top industry body said yesterday. Passenger car sales fell to 1.89 million units in the financial year to last month from 2.03 million the previous year, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers said in a statement. Last month alone, sales plunged 22.5 percent year-on-year, it said.
AVIATION
Boeing plans expansion
US aerospace giant Boeing Co announced on Tuesday that it would invest more than US$1 billion to expand operations in South Carolina, where it builds the 787 Dreamliner. “We are committing to create 2,000 new jobs and invest in excess of an additional US$1 billion in South Carolina over the next eight years as part of our overall plan to capture market growth, and deliver on our commitments to customers and other stakeholders,” Boeing said in a statement. The firm said it was expanding in South Carolina to prepare for “unprecedented demand for commercial airplanes — including a forecast of another 34,000 airplanes required over the next 20 years.”
FINANCE
Mirae plans job cuts
Mirae Asset Securities Co, the brokerage affiliate of South Korea’s second-largest money manager, is to eliminate half of its 38 jobs in Hong Kong after stock trading in the city fell. The timing of the cuts is yet to be determined, Choi Jong-hyun, a Seoul-based spokesman for the firm, said in an e-mailed response to queries yesterday. Average daily turnover by value on the Hong Kong exchange fell 23 percent last year to HK$53.9 billion (US$6.9 billion).
GAS
Japan firm in pipeline bid
Mexico’s president says a Japanese company has been tapped to build a pipeline to import US natural gas through Arizona. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto is visiting Japan, where he made the announcement about the US$460 million project on Tuesday. Japan’s Mitsui Corp will build the pipeline, which will run from Tucson to the Mexican border. The president’s office said in a brief statement the pipeline will be able to carry 770 million cubic feet (21.8 million cubic meters) of gas per day.
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