■Mobile phones
Motorola's China sales up
Motorola Inc, the biggest overseas company in China, said it expects sales from China rose about 15 percent last year because it exported more cellphones and semiconductor chips. The world's second-largest maker of mobile telephones had US$5.7 billion in sales from China last year, including both domestic sales and exports, President Mike Zafirovski said. The company's global sales were US$30 billion in 2001. Motorola will announce its results later this month. "We expect the numbers to at least increase to double digits in 2003," said Zafirovski, who was in Shanghai for an event to launch eight new handset models. Motorola last year dethroned Nokia Oyj as the top handset seller in China, the world's largest cell-phone market.
■ Mitsubishi
New handsets rolled out
Mitsubishi Electric Corp, Japan's third-largest mobile-phone maker, will by April supply European cellular operators with handsets that allow users to send e-mails and view Web sites. Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Electric will start sending samples with NTT DoCoMo Inc's "i-mode" wireless Internet feature to KPN Mobile NV of the Netherlands, France's Bouygues Telecomm-unications and Telefonica Moviles SA in Spain, Mitsubishi Senior Vice President Yoshifumi Itoh said. Mitsubishi Electric is trying to revive its flagging mobile-phone business by focusing on overseas sales of handsets that have cameras and are able to access the Internet. The company plans to sell such handsets in Europe and China, the world's biggest cellular market, later this year. In the year starting April 1, Mitsubishi Electric aims to ship about 1.5 million handsets overseas, Itoh said.
■ Online auctions
Man tries to sell island
A California man is trying to sell a Caribbean island on Internet auction site eBay for a minimum of US$2 million. The undeveloped island of Thatch Cay is believed to be the first to be sold over the popular auction site. The 93 hectare piece of paradise is being sold in three lots. The owner, San Diego property developer Scott McIntyre, estimates its market value at US$22 million to US$25 million and says that if the entire island is not sold, he plans to use proceeds from parcel sales to fund the development of a private retreat or residential estates. The auction marks the second unusual property to go up for sale on eBay in the past month. In December the defunct California logging town of Bridgeport was sold for US41.78 million. If McIntyre gets anywhere near his estimated market value of the island it will mark the highest sale ever made on eBay. The record is held by a used Gulfstream jet that sold for US$4 million.
■ Argentina
Most currency controls end
Argentina scrapped most of the currency controls it imposed more than a year ago to spur trade and revive growth after the peso gained 14 percent since October. The central bank lifted limits on making payments for imports and let foreign companies send profits abroad. Argentina will also require companies to sell US dollars to the central bank only on exports of US$1 million or more, up from US$200,000. The steps aim to satisfy conditions laid down by the International Monetary Fund, which cut off lending days after the country began the limits in late 2001. The peso, the world's second worst-performing currency last year, is rising in part on expectations of IMF support.
Agencies
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2