■ Automobiles
Sales slowing, China says
After months of sluggish sedan sales, China's National Bureau of Statistics yesterday lowered its forecast for local sedan production this year to 2.39 million units from 2.82 million units. Last month, sedan production reached 169,600 units, up 1.5 percent from August last year, but down 0.5 percent from July, the bureau said in a statement posted on its Web site. In the first eight months of this year, sedan production was 1.58 million units, up 25.4 percent compared with the same period of last year, it said. The statistics bureau said that slowing production in July and last month resulted in more than 30 percent of sedan production capacity being left unused.
■ Fiscal policy
Manila to sell vanity plates
The cash-strapped Philippine government will auction off "vanity" car plates to help raise 3.5 billion pesos (US$62.3 million), the transportation office announced yesterday. The auction, set for Sept. 29, will offer car owners the chance to buy personalized plates with as many as six characters or numerals, or plates with lucky number combinations, the Land Transportation Office said in its Web site. The combinations considered to be the most desirable, such as "888888" -- widely deemed by the Chinese community to be a good luck symbol -- will be auctioned off at a floor price of 50,000 pesos, the office said. Other plates with such personal messages like "MACHO" or "WINNER" will be sold for 10,000 pesos, the office added.
■ Taxation
France offers tax breaks
The French government said Tuesday it would offer companies tax breaks and other incentives worth more than 1 billion euros (US$1.2 billion) to encourage them to keep jobs in the country rather than outsource them. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said that 20 "competitiveness zones" would be designated in which companies would be offered reductions in corporate tax totalling US$250 million a year for three years if they guarantee not to move jobs abroad. Economy Minister Nicolas Sarkozy is to announce other measures, including the waiver of social charges, when he presents next year's budget next week. Additional benefits will raise the incentives on offer to a billion euros, Raffarin told reporters.
■ Chemicals
DuPont sees small growth
DuPont Co, the second-largest US chemical maker, said the growth in the global markets where it competes will rise less next year as the economy slows and raw-material costs keep rising. DuPont's growth will slow in coatings, electronics and basic chemicals, including plastic resins, chief financial officer Gary Pfeiffer said in New York in a presentation to investors. Profits in agriculture and the safety and protection unit will climb faster than other businesses, Pfeiffer said. Global GDP, the value of all goods and services, will rise 3 percent next year after a projected 4 percent gain this year, he said. The "DuPont Market Index," a measure of markets where it competes, will rise 2.9 percent next year after a 5.2 percent gain this year, the company said. "The rate of growth in the economy peaked in the second quarter of this year," Pfeiffer said.
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