TRADE
Indonesia posts deficit
Indonesia’s trade balance swung to a slim deficit last month, as imports of food and clothes rose ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr holiday, official data showed yesterday. The deficit in Southeast Asia’s top economy came in at US$305 million, compared with a small surplus of US$70 million the previous month, national statistics agency data showed. Imports rose to US$15.72 billion, up 0.54 percent from a year earlier. However, exports’ 4.5 percent year-on-year increase, on the back of rising shipments of refined mineral products, helped offset the increase in imports.
TRADE
Canberra urges trade boost
Australia yesterday urged the G20 group of advanced and emerging countries to put more emphasis on boosting global trade in their proposals for economic growth, particularly in the wake of last week’s collapsed WTO customs pact. G20 leaders are to meet in Brisbane in November, and as G20 president, Australia wants countries to submit binding measures to raise collective GDP by an additional 2 percent over five years. So far most of the proposals are narrowly focused on areas like competition policy and infrastructure. “We would like to see more trade and employment measures,” Heather Smith, Australia’s most senior G20 official, said during a briefing with reporters in Singapore. “It’s about removing domestic barriers that will help facilitate trade.”
EMPLOYMENT
Spain’s jobless rate drops
Spain’s jobless number shrank a little last month, the government said yesterday, as the summer tourism season opened. The number of people registered as unemployed fell month-on-month by 29,841 people, or 0.67 percent, to 4.42 million last month, the Spanish Ministry of Employment and Social Security said. It was the sixth straight month it showed a decline in the number of people who are registered as unemployed. Unemployment rate fell to 24.47 percent in the second quarter of this year from 25.93 percent in the previous quarter, a separate report showed last month.
INVESTMENT
KKR ups winemaker bid
US private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) yesterday raised its bid for Australia’s Treasury Wine Estates by 10.6 percent, valuing the company at A$3.38 billion (US$3.15 billion). Treasury Wine Estates, which has assets on three continents with more than 80 brands, in May rejected a A$4.70 a share offer, saying it undervalued the company. The US firm bumped up its offer to A$5.20, with the Australian company saying it was now in negotiations for due diligence of its books. Treasury Wine Estates has more than 11,000 hectares of vineyards, sales of 32 million cases of wine annually and employs 3,500 people.
CONGLOMERATEs
GE to invest in Africa
General Electric Co (GE) will invest about US$2 billion in African nations by 2018 and regards the continent as its most promising growth region. The money will be spent building new infrastructure projects, training local workers and improving regional supply chains among other activities, the Connecticut-based company said in a statement yesterday. GE already supplies trains for Nigeria’s rail network and aircraft engines for Kenya Airways Ltd. GE had US$49 billion in assets in the Middle East and Africa at the end of December last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
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