■ Trade
Vietnam, US to ink trade deal
Vietnam and the US are preparing to sign a trade agreement within weeks, Vietnam's trade minister said yesterday. The deal would pave the way for the communist country to join the WTO. The two countries reached an agreement in principle after four days of negotiations in Washington earlier this month. Trade Minister Truong Dinh Tuyen said US Trade Representative-designate Susan Schwab is expected to attend a meeting of trade ministers of the APEC forum in Ho Chi Minh City on June 1 and 2, and that Vietnam and the US were expected to sign their agreement at that time. Vietnam applied to join the world trade body in 1995 and has concluded negotiations with 28 members that had requested bilateral talks.
■ Steel
Arcelor board considers bid
The board of steel group Arcelor decided on Sunday to postpone its response to an improved takeover bid from its rival Mittal Steel while financial regulators review and approve it, its chairman said. The board had also mandated the management of Arcelor "as soon as the prospectus of the revised offer and the business plan of Mittal are received to study their conditions and report back," Joseph Kinsch said after a four-hour board meeting. In Paris Lakshmi Mittal, head of the group that bears his name, said he was "convinced" his new offer of 25.8 billion euros (US$32.9 billion), or 37.74 euros a share announced on Friday would be enough to win a majority of shareholders.
■ Banking
New bank to be formed
Japanese bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc will jointly establish an investment bank with former Morgan Stanley vice chairman Joseph Perella and others, a report said yesterday. The investment bank to be launched in the US will handle international mergers and acquisitions, the business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. Mitsubishi would bring its client network and product development capabilities, while Perella would offer his expertise and personal connections to the new institution, the newspaper said. Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Co, which handles the group's investment banking business, will extend a combined US$100 million toward the new bank's capitalization and its investment funds, the paper said. The bank, which will launch its operations as soon as next month, will offer merger and acquisition consulting services, as well as engage in its own corporate lending and investments.
■ Banking
Chinese may break up bank
China's central bank has recommended breaking up the huge but financially troubled Agricultural Bank of China, its fourth biggest bank, a newspaper reported yesterday. A breakup was the "preferred proposal" among several submitted to the Cabinet by central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan (周小川), the China Business Post said, citing unidentified "authoritative channels." The Agricultural Bank has lagged behind China's other major state-owned commercial banks, which have been recapitalized by the government and found foreign strategic investors. The central bank would turn the Agricultural Bank into a group of provincial-level banks, which could let Beijing force provinces to share in the cost of shoring up its balance sheet, the Business Post said.
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
FAST RELEASE: The council lauded the developer for completing model testing in only four days and releasing a commercial version for use by academia and industry The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday released the latest artificial intelligence (AI) language model in traditional Chinese embedded with Taiwanese cultural values. The council launched the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) program in April last year to develop and train traditional Chinese-language models based on LLaMA, the open-source AI language model released by Meta. The program aims to tackle the information bias that is often present in international large-scale language models and take Taiwanese culture and values into consideration, it said. Llama 3-TAIDE-LX-8B-Chat-Alpha1, released yesterday, is the latest large language model in traditional Chinese. It was trained based on Meta’s Llama-3-8B
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