■ Retailing
Direct selling green-lighted
China is preparing to lift its ban on direct selling and plans to issue a draft regulation by September, state press reported yes-terday. "Illegal pyramid selling will face a serious crackdown while legitimate direct selling companies from home and abroad will receive encouragement and support from the Chinese government," said Deng Zhan, deputy director-general of the Ministry of Commerce's Foreign Investment Administration. China imposed a ban on direct sales in 1998 after numerous fraud scandals. Ten foreign-funded direct selling companies such as Amway and Avon were allowed to continue opera-ting but had to shift promo-tion of their products to retail outlets, the China Daily said. The stop-gap measures are set to come at the end of this year, in line with promises China made on its accession to the WTO.
Richard Holwill, vice-president of Alticor Inc, Amway's parent company, was quoted by the news-paper as saying the deregu-lation followed China's commitments to the WTO.
■ Cameras
Digital sales to soar
Worldwide unit shipments of digital cameras will exceed 100 million units in 2008, from an expected 68.6 million units this year, mar-ket researcher IDC said. Global shipments of digital single-lens reflex cameras, or models favored by pro-fessionals, will be 2.1 million units this year and reach 6.6 million units in 2008 as digital SLRs replace film-based SLRs, Christo-pher Chute, senior analyst at IDC, said. Shipments of digital SLRs will be driven by sub-US$1,000 price points, legacy users of Nikon Corp and Canon Inc models, and new users interested in developing photography as a hobby, Chute said.
■ Telecoms
NTT DoCoMo gets new boss
NTT DoCoMo Inc named executive vice president Masao Nakamura as its next chief executive officer, replacing Keiji Tachikawa. Nakamura, 59, will be charged with reversing market-share losses at the world's second-largest mobile-phone operator, said Norio Wada, president of DoCoMo parent Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. at a press conference in Tokyo. Nakamura takes the reins at DoCoMo as the market leader is losing ground to rival KDDI Corp's phone network and is predicting sales to decline in the business year ending March 31. Under Tachi-kawa, DoCoMo pioneered
i-mode, the world's first wireless Internet service, and FOMA, the first so-called third-generation network for faster access to games, music and video on a handset.
■ Automakers
Mitsubishi barred
Japan's National Police Agency has barred Mitsu-bishi Motors Corp and its truck affiliate from bidding for police orders for 11 months following allega-tions that company officials covered up defects which caused the wheels to come off, a news report said yesterday. The measure, which took effect on Thursday, prevents Mitsu-bishi Motors and Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Corp from selling vehicles to the agency, Kyodo News agency said. The decision comes after seven former Mitsu-bishi executives were arrested earlier this month on suspicion they falsified a report on an accident in 2002 in which a wheel flew off a truck and killed a woman. Japan's Transport Ministry has also taken a similar step.
MAKING WAVES: China’s maritime militia could become a nontraditional threat in war, clogging up shipping lanes to prevent US or Japanese intervention, a report said About 1,900 Chinese ships flying flags of convenience and fishing vessels that participated in China’s military exercises around Taiwan last month and in January last year have been listed for monitoring, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ching-chin (謝慶欽) said yesterday. Following amendments to the Commercial Port Act (商港法) and the Law of Ships (船舶法) last month, the CGA can designate possible berthing areas or deny ports of call for vessels suspected of loitering around areas where undersea cables can be accessed, Oceans Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. The list of suspected ships, originally 300, had risen to about
DAREDEVIL: Honnold said it had always been a dream of his to climb Taipei 101, while a Netflix producer said the skyscraper was ‘a real icon of this country’ US climber Alex Honnold yesterday took on Taiwan’s tallest building, becoming the first person to scale Taipei 101 without a rope, harness or safety net. Hundreds of spectators gathered at the base of the 101-story skyscraper to watch Honnold, 40, embark on his daredevil feat, which was also broadcast live on Netflix. Dressed in a red T-shirt and yellow custom-made climbing shoes, Honnold swiftly moved up the southeast face of the glass and steel building. At one point, he stepped onto a platform midway up to wave down at fans and onlookers who were taking photos. People watching from inside
Japan’s strategic alliance with the US would collapse if Tokyo were to turn away from a conflict in Taiwan, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi said yesterday, but distanced herself from previous comments that suggested a possible military response in such an event. Takaichi expressed her latest views on a nationally broadcast TV program late on Monday, where an opposition party leader criticized her for igniting tensions with China with the earlier remarks. Ties between Japan and China have sunk to the worst level in years after Takaichi said in November that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could bring about a Japanese
The WHO ignored early COVID-19 warnings from Taiwan, US Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Jim O’Neill said on Friday, as part of justification for Washington withdrawing from the global health body. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday said that the US was pulling out of the UN agency, as it failed to fulfill its responsibilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The WHO “ignored early COVID warnings from Taiwan in 2019 by pretending Taiwan did not exist, O’Neill wrote on X on Friday, Taiwan time. “It ignored rigorous science and promoted lockdowns.” The US will “continue international coordination on infectious
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