■ Semiconductors
Toshiba ups chip production
Japan's Toshiba will invest ¥200 billion (US$1.8 billion) to boost output of flash-memory chips used for mobile phones and portable music players to meet soaring global demand, a report said yesterday. The electronics giant will lift production capacity at its domestic chip plant to 150,000 units per month in 2007, sharply up from the current capacity of 10,000 units, the business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. Toshiba's move will likely pose a challenge to South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co, the world's biggest computer-memory chip maker, which controls more than 50 percent of the global flash-memory market, the daily said. Toshiba estimates the global market value for high-density NAND flash memory chips will soar to ¥2 trillion in 2008, up 168 percent from ¥745 billion last year.
■ Telecom
Canberra mulling options
The Australian government could transfer some or all of its shares in the telecommunications giant Telstra into a proposed "future fund" rather than sell them at any price, Finance Minister Nick Minchin said yesterday. The government of Prime Minister John Howard has authorized the controversial sale of its remaining 51.8 percent share in the company for which it hopes to raise some A$30 billion (US$23 billion). Minchin, who is preparing a report for Cabinet on the sale, said it had not yet been decided whether the sale would proceed in one tranche or three. If there was a partial sell-off, the government's remaining stake could be transferred to a proposed "future fund," designed to pay for the government's future pension liabilities, and sold at the discretion of the fund's independent board. Minchin said it was possible that all of the government's Telstra shares could be placed in this fund.
■ Trade
EU official urges effort
Mariann Fischer Boel, the agriculture commissioner of the EU, said yesterday that a "huge effort" is needed if the upcoming WTO meeting in Hong Kong is to be a success. Speaking after an informal meeting with the agriculture ministers of Australia, Japan, the US and Canada in Queensland state, she urged all countries to work to end the current impasse in trade talks. "We all realize what is at stake and now all sides have to contribute to keeping this train on track, making sure there is movement in all three agricultural pillars -- export subsidies, domestic support and market access," she said in a statement. December's WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong is hoped to conclude the Doha round of talks after four years of often heated negotiations designed to reduce protectionism and promote trade to aid development in poorer countries. However, the failure to hammer out an interim agreement last month prompted speculation that the December meeting was doomed to failure.
■ Automobiles
Hybrid owners seek passes
California owners of hybrid-electric cars are rushing to get state permits that let them drive without passengers in freeway carpool lanes, with about 1,000 people applying per day, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. More than 12,000 drivers have registered for the special stickers that became available Aug. 10, the paper said. California passed a law allowing solo drivers of high-mileage hybrids into carpool lanes last year.
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
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
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 is mischaracterizing UN Resolution 2758 for its own interests by conflating it with its “one China” principle, US Deputy Assistant Secretary for China and Taiwan Mark Lambert said on Monday. Speaking at a seminar held by the German Marshall Fund, Lambert called for support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the international community at a time when China is increasingly misusing Resolution 2758. The resolution had a clear impact when it changed who occupied the China seat at the UN, Lambert said. “Today, however, the PRC [People’s Republic of China] increasingly mischaracterizes and misuses Resolution 2758 to serve its own interests,” Lambert said. “Beijing