ENERGY
Eurus building Oahu plant
Eurus Energy Holdings Corp, a Japanese clean-energy developer, yesterday said it had begun construction of a 28-megawatt solar power station on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. It is the company’s second solar project in the US after a 45-megawatt plant in California, the Tokyo-based company said in a statement. Canadian Solar Inc will supply the photovoltaic modules, while power will be sold to Hawaiian Electric Co. The plant qualified for a US investment tax credit program, Eurus said.
MACROECONOMICS
Finland GDP rises 0.1%
Finland’s economy avoided a fourth year of contraction as consumer spending edged up in the final quarter of last year. GDP rose 0.1 percent from the third quarter, data from Statistics Finland in Helsinki showed. Adjusted for working days, economic output last year rose 0.6 percent from a year earlier. For the full year, the economy grew 0.4 percent. The country has been hit hard as key industries, such as paper making and consumer electronics, suffer and export demand from Russia slides. Finnish exports rose 0.6 percent last quarter and imports gained 1.6 percent in the quarter. Private consumption grew 0.2 percent and government spending climbed 0.4 percent.
CONSTRUCTION
Visas for rich drop 84%
The number of wealthy investors granted visas to live in the UK fell 84 percent last year after the government doubled the minimum investment required for the permit to £2 million (US$2.8 million) in November 2014. New checks that mean applicants have to go through anti-money-laundering due diligence checks may also be restricting demand, said Transparency International UK. The decline in the number of people being granted the visas may be bad news for developers. There are plans to construct more than 25,000 luxury properties in London over the next decade, data compiled by consulting firm Arcadis showed.
BANKING
Elliott presses BEA on sale
Elliott Management Corp, the hedge fund run by billionaire Paul Singer, urged Bank of East Asia Ltd (BEA) to remove restrictions from major shareholders on disposing of their holdings, stepping up its campaign to force a sale of the Hong Kong-based bank. The fund, which holds a 7 percent stake in the bank, said that Spain’s CaixaBank SA and Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp should be free to sell their shares. “BEA has been mismanaged for 20 years, enough is enough for the independent shareholders,” Elliott said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. “We call on the board of BEA to release CaixaBank and SMBC from all remaining contractual restrictions as regards their shareholdings in BEA and begin an auction process to explore the scope for a sale of the Bank at an appropriate premium.”
CEMENT
UltraTech to buy Jaiprakash
UltraTech Cement Ltd, India’s largest cement producer, said it would buy units of Jaiprakash Associates Ltd, including equity and debt, for 165 billion rupees (US$2.4 billion). The deal will increase UltraTech’s capacity by 33 percent to 90.7 million tonnes and give it access to newer markets in six Indian states, including Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, the Mumbai-based company said on Sunday. Jaiprakash, the Noida, India-based builder of the nation’s only Formula One track, is selling assets to cut debt, which more than doubled to 753 billion rupees in five years through March last year, Bloomberg data showed.
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