Print

Mail

wiki links

World business quick take

Chipmakers: Toshiba to raise capacity
Toshiba Corp said it will spend ?10 billion (US$84 million) to boost production capacity worldwide of transistors and light-emitting diodes to meet growing demand for general-purpose chips used in mobile phones. The world's No. 2 chipmaker will raise transistor production capacity at plants in Hyogo and Fukuoka prefectures, spokesman Kenichi Sugiyama said. LED assembly capacity will be raised at Toshiba's Fukuoka plant and Toshiba Semiconductor Thailand. Transistors and LEDs are in demand because they help cut power consumption and allow electronics makers to reduce the size of cellular phone handsets, Sugiyama said.

Airlines: Asiana's profit may soar
Asiana Airlines Inc, South Korea's second-largest carrier, said it may post a record third-quarter profit as people revive travel plans that were delayed during June's soccer World Cup co-hosted by Japan and South Korea. "We may post our biggest three-month profit in the third quarter, with the strong won helping to reduce costs and more travel demand as August is a peak travel season," Asiana said in the statement. Net income in July was 20.4 billion won (US$17 million) in July, compared with a loss of 5.7 billion in the same month last year, Asiana said, citing preliminary figures. International travel demand rose in July as many people took trips they had put off to watch the Korean and Japanese soccer teams in the World Cup, Asiana said.

Internet: Wal-Mart sells textbooks
Wal-Mart Stores Inc, which began online sales of college textbooks last year, is still working to gain acceptance from students who prefer on-campus bookstores, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. While students complained about textbook prices, which can be more than US$100 for one book, many still prefer the convenience of a campus store, the newspaper said. Wal-Mart can sell textbooks for less than its competitors, both on line and on campus, but it doesn't offer used books, which students often buy to save more money, the Inquirer said, citing a random survey of books required for fall classes. Annual sales of textbooks in the US total about US$7 billion.

Economy: Vietnam's production up
Vietnam's private sector led the way as overall industrial production grew 14 percent in the first eight months of this year from a year earlier to 172.86 trillion dong (US$11.3 billion), the government said yesterday. Production by the non-state sector jumped 19.2 percent to 41.64 trillion dong (US$2.7 billion) while the state-owned sector grew 11.7 percent to 69.18 trillion dong (US$4.5 billion), the General Statistics Office said. Production by foreign-invested companies -- usually joint ventures between foreign corporations and Vietnamese state-owned enterprises -- expanded 13.1 percent to 62.04 trillion dong, it said. Production of motorcycles soared 56.5 percent in the January-to-August period to 466,084, while automobiles jumped 51.1 percent to 17,208 vehicles. Crude oil exports fell 7.1 percent to 10.69 million tonnes. Production in August alone was worth 23.64 trillion dong, a 14.2 percent increase from the same month a year ago. The government is targeting a 14 percent rise in industrial output for this year.
This story has been viewed 1658 times.