MACROECONOMICS
German jobless rate rises
Unemployment in Germany rose slightly in seasonally adjusted terms last month, but the labor market is continuing to hold up well to the eurozone debt crisis, official data showed yesterday. The raw or unadjusted jobless total fell by 77,541 to 3.02 million and the jobless rate slipped to 7.1 percent from 7.3 percent in March, the Federal Labor Office said. Nevertheless, the seasonally adjusted jobless total rose by 4,000, slightly faster than analysts’ expectations. The seasonally adjusted jobless rate was flat at 6.9 percent.
MACROECONOMICS
Spain’s GDP dips 0.5%
Spain’s economy shrank 0.5 percent in the first quarter, official data showed yesterday, as a job-killing recession gripped the country. GDP dipped 0.8 percent in the previous quarter and has been contracting since the middle of 2011, pushing the jobless rate above 27 percent.
MACROECONOMICS
S Korean output drops
South Korea’s industrial output fell for a third straight month in March, as carmakers struggled in the face of a weaker yen, official data showed yesterday. Production in the mining, manufacturing, gas and electricity industries fell 2.6 percent from February and was down 3 percent from a year ago, Statistics Korea said.
AIRLINES
UA orders 30 planes
United Airlines (UA) on Monday announced an order for 30 Embraer 175 jetliners as it updates its fleet of regional aircraft. It did not disclose the price of the purchase. The planes, built by Brazil’s leading aircraft maker, will be added to the fleet of United Express.
ENERGY
BP beats profit forecasts
BP PLC profits outperformed expectations by almost US$1 billion in the first quarter thanks in part to the high margin nature of new production that came on stream at the end of last year and a strong performance from its trading division. The British oil company turned in underlying replacement cost net profit of US$4.215 billion for the quarter. That was down from US$4.65 billion a year ago mainly due to asset sales, but beat analysts expectations of about US$3.27 billion.
AUTOMAKERS
Fiat Q1 profit disappoints
Fiat’s first-quarter profit fell more than expected as sales by its US unit Chrysler suffered from the phase-out of the Jeep Liberty pending a new model launch. First-quarter trading profit was 618 million euros (US$805 million), while pre-tax profit came in at 160 million euros.
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