■ Hong Kong
Sales tax being mulled
Hong Kong may introduce a sales tax after three years, risking the territory's reputation as a duty-free shopping haven to bring government finances into balance. The deficit in the year ending March 31 will probably be HK$49 billion (US$6.3 billion), lower than the government's previous HK$78 billion forecast, and may fall to HK$42.6 billion next fiscal year, Financial Secretary Henry Tang (唐英年) said in his first budget speech. He forecast economic growth will accelerate to 6 percent this year from 3.3 percent last year. A sales tax won't be introduced for at least three years, Tang said, adding that a 5 percent rate would generate HK$20 billion to HK$30 billion a year. Tang said the government expects a HK$6 billion budget surplus in five years time.
■ Food
Imports add spice to kimchi
South Korean kimchi may not always be as Korean as people think. Imports of the fermented food soared to a record 2,396 tonnes in January, tripling from 698 tonnes over the same period last year, according to figures released yesterday by South Korea's Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Nearly all the imports came from China, where costs for such ingredients as cabbage, garlic and spicy red pepper are much lower than those in South Korea. Last year, South Koreans gobbled up 1.18 million tonnes of kimchi, about two-thirds of it homemade. Kimchi imports for last year totaled 26,042 tonnes, worth US$10.3 million. South Korean kimchi producers are trying to counter the challenge of rising imports by also cutting costs and focusing on niche markets for "high-quality" native kimchi.
■ Mobile phones
Nokia No. 1 in the US
Nokia Oyj regained the No. 1 position in the US mobile-phone market from Motorola Inc, helped by a new range of handsets that use Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology, newspaper Kauppalehti reported, citing researcher Gartner Inc. The Finnish company has a market share of 34 percent in North America, the Helsinki-based financial daily reported. Nokia has also been helped by delivery problems at Motorola, the paper said. Nokia's global market share was 35 percent last year, down 0.4 percentage points from 2002, the paper said. In Europe, Nokia's fourth-quarter market share fell to 45 percent from 53 percent in the year earlier period.
■ Airlines
Japanese carrier to cut jobs
Asia's top carrier, Japan Airlines System Corp, will reduce its group work force by almost 8 percent in the next three years, a report said yesterday. The job cuts, which will affect mainly ground staff, are intended to trim operating costs after the integration of Japan Airlines and Japan Air System in April, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. The group's work force would be reduced by 4,500 from the current 57,000 by March 2007, the newspaper report said. The airline believes it will be able to achieve the payroll reduction through natural attrition alone, it said. At the same time, it will push ahead with the consolidation of administrative divisions and group companies to eliminate duplication, the newspaper said. The company hopes the personnel reduction will help turn around its business to post a profit of about ¥100 billion in fiscal 2006.
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
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has
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
UNWAVERING: Paraguay remains steadfast in its support of Taiwan, but is facing growing pressure at home and abroad to switch recognition to Beijing, Pena said Paraguayan President Santiago Pena has pledged to continue enhancing cooperation with Taiwan, as he and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed opposition to any unilateral change to the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait using force, Japanese media reported on Saturday. Kishida yesterday completed a trip to France, Brazil and Paraguay, his first visit to South America since taking office in 2021. After the Japanese leader and Pena spoke for more than an hour on Friday, exchanging views on the situation in East Asia in the face of China’s increasing military pressure on Taiwan, they affirmed that “unilateral attempts to change the