AUTOMOTIVE
Refitted airbags faulty?
Australia’s consumer watchdog yesterday said it was urgently seeking information from the government regulator and carmakers after a magazine reported that recalled Takata airbags were being replaced by faulty airbags. Consumer magazine Choice discovered carmakers were refitting faulty Takata airbags in recalled vehicles as a temporary solution after questioning 14 car manufacturers in the nation. Many confirmed that a percentage of the vehicles were refitted with like-for-like replacements and would need to be recalled again, Choice spokesman Tom Godfrey said. The Japanese-manufactured airbags have been linked to 18 deaths around the world. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Chairman Rod Sims said he would consider recommending the government upgrade the current voluntary recall to a mandatory recall, if the manufacturers were not correcting the faults quickly enough.
CURRENCIES
Dollar dips to 13-month low
The US dollar yesterday fell to a 13-month low against a trade-weighted basket of currencies, weighed down by softening US Treasury yields and weak data that is undermining the case for a further rise in interest rates this year. Speculative “short” bets against the US dollar reached the highest since February 2013 last week, according to calculations by Reuters and Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released on Friday. “A weaker dollar seems to be the path of least resistance given the soft data coming out of the US and the political uncertainty,” said Michael Hewson, chief markets strategist at CMC Capital Markets in London. The US dollar index, measuring the currency’s strength against a basket of other currencies, fell to 93.823 yesterday, its lowest level since June last year.
FRANCE
Services lag manufacturing
France’s private-sector economy slowed this month as the best manufacturing numbers in more than six years could not compensate for a weakening in services. A composite purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell to 55.7 from 56.6 last month, IHS Markit Economics said yesterday. That is worse than the 56.4 predicted by economists in a Bloomberg survey. While service growth retreated more than forecast, manufacturing unexpectedly increased, and all readings were well above the 50 mark that separates expansion from contraction. “The French private sector continued to expand at a robust pace in July, despite losing a little momentum from the previous quarter,” IHS economist Annabel Fiddes said. It “marks a solid start to the second half of the year.”
AUTOMAKERS
BMW denies collusion
BMW AG sought to defuse concerns about possible collusion with other German automakers by rejecting allegations of cheating on diesel emissions and downplaying talks with rivals as being focused on promoting exhaust-treatment technology in Europe. With uncertainty clouding the German auto industry, BMW said it has gone farther than competitors to ensure its diesel cars meet regulatory guidelines while still performing well on the road. The company said it combines AdBlue fluid to neutralize pollutants as well as a system that stores nitrogen-oxide emissions, adding that it sees no reason to recall or upgrade its latest diesel vehicles. The company is offering a voluntary upgrade on older Euro 5 models.
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
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
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