■ US economy
Trade deficit his record
The US economy reached a record-high trade deficit in January, importing goods and services worth US$43.1 billion more than its exports, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. Exports of meat, consumer goods and auto parts declined, while the value of imports of oil surged to the highest level since March last year. The trade deficit rose from US$42.7 billion in December, the agency said. Exports fell 1.2 percent, while imports declined 0.5 percent. Many countries have stopped importing beef from the US following the December discovery of a single case of mad cow disease, adding to the trade deficit. Meat and poultry exports fell 40 percent, reaching their lowest level since November 1993.
■ Mobile phones
China to invest 252bn yuan
Companies will invest 252 billion yuan (US$30 billion) in high-speed cellular networks in China in 2006, after the government starts granting licenses for the service this year, the China Daily reported, citing Lu Guoying, an analyst with government-backed research company CCID Consulting. The establishment of so-called third-generation services, which enable mobile-phone users to hold video conferences over handsets and access the Internet at faster speeds, will create a new mobile-phone market worth about 100 billion yuan a year, the newspaper said. China's mobile-phone subscribers will exceed 400 million in 2006, up from last year's 269 million, the report said, citing data from the country's Ministry of Information Industry.
■ Gas
China pipeline faces delay
Russia may delay building a US$17 billion gas pipeline to China and South Korea by four years on concern there won't be enough demand in northeast China, which gets most of its energy from coal, a Russian government adviser said. Russia's gas pipeline monopoly OAO Gazprom wants to send gas from Siberia's Kovykta field, which has 10 times Asia's annual gas demand, to Western Europe instead and delay delivery to China until 2012, said Andrei Korzhubaev, an economist at the Institute of Petroleum Geology in Siberia. BP Plc, the field operator and Europe's biggest oil company, said government support may boost demand enough in the northeast to warrant its preferred route to China. The tussle with Gazprom, the world's biggest gas producer, is delaying supplies to China.
■ South Korea
Defaults likely to increase
Standard and Poor's said yesterday that South Korea's corporate and individual defaults may rise further, raising questions about trends in the country's credit quality. South Korea's corporate default rate hit a record high 133,195 in January, up 14 percent from a year earlier, according to the Korea Federation of Banks. Individual defaults also hit a record high, the international credit rating agency said without providing details. "In Korea, default rates are likely to continue to increase for some time," Standard and Poor's credit analyst Takahira Ogawa said. Since early last year, domestic demand was hit hard by credit card turmoil, the chief culprit behind South Korea's economic slump last year. In addition, higher costs stemming from global raw material prices and a rise in interest rates have also served to further depress the pace of economic growth, the credit ratings agency said.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
Taiwan has experienced its most significant improvement in the QS World University Rankings by Subject, data provided on Sunday by international higher education analyst Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) showed. Compared with last year’s edition of the rankings, which measure academic excellence and influence, Taiwanese universities made great improvements in the H Index metric, which evaluates research productivity and its impact, with a notable 30 percent increase overall, QS said. Taiwanese universities also made notable progress in the Citations per Paper metric, which measures the impact of research, achieving a 13 percent increase. Taiwanese universities gained 10 percent in Academic Reputation, but declined 18 percent
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
UNDER DISCUSSION: The combatant command would integrate fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups to defend waters closest to the coastline, a source said The military could establish a new combatant command as early as 2026, which would be tasked with defending Taiwan’s territorial waters 24 nautical miles (44.4km) from the nation’s coastline, a source familiar with the matter said yesterday. The new command, which would fall under the Naval Command Headquarters, would be led by a vice admiral and integrate existing fast attack boat and anti-ship missile groups, along with the Naval Maritime Surveillance and Reconnaissance Command, said the source, who asked to remain anonymous. It could be launched by 2026, but details are being discussed and no final timetable has been announced, the source