■ Airports
Ferrovial in bid for BAA
Spanish construction company Grupo Ferrovial SA said yesterday it has raised its offer for British airport owner BAA PLC to £0.90 (US$1.67) per share, from its previous bid of £0.81 per share. Ferrovial, which is now making a hostile bid, said BAA rejected the new offer on Monday. The offer values BAA at £9.7 billion (US$18.1 billion). BAA said last week that it believes the company's value is in excess of £0.94 per share. BAA owns and operates airports that handle 63 percent of travelers to and from Britain -- a figure that rises to 86 percent in Scotland and to 92 percent in London, where it controls Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick airports.
■ Trade
US, Vietnam to sign deal
The US and Vietnam were expected to sign a trade deal today that would pave the way for the communist nation to join the WTO this year, officials said. The deal between the former enemies would scrap US quotas on Vietnamese textiles and other key exports and give US companies greater access to the dynamic emerging market of more than 83 million people. It would also remove a major hurdle in Vietnam's bid to join the 149-nation WTO before Hanoi hosts an APEC summit in November, due to bring leaders including US President George W. Bush. Vietnam's Trade Minister Truong Dinh Tuyen and his US counterpart were due to sign the pact in Ho Chi Minh City today, the eve of an APEC trade ministers' meeting, Vietnamese officials and state media said.
■ Trade
Australia, China in FTA talks
Chinese officials have told Australia that opening access to China's services industry would be the most difficult aspect of free trade negotiations between the two countries, an official said yesterday. Australia and China concluded their fifth round of free trade agreement (FTA) talks in Beijing over the weekend, agreeing on a general framework for negotiations to proceed. The talks began a year ago, with agriculture, services and manufacturing looming as the most contentious areas. Ric Wells, who heads the China FTA task force for Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, told a Senate committee hearing yesterday that China believed services negotiations would be the most sensitive part of any prospective deal. The sector includes telecommunications, professional and financial services. "Services is one of the sectors where Australia stands to gain most from the negotiations because that's the sector where Chinese restrictions are greatest," he said.
■ Investment
Bank of China IPO
The Bank of China, China's second-largest lender, said yesterday it had raised US$9.725 billion in its Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO), making it the world's sixth-largest IPO. The bank priced the IPO at HK$2.95 a share (US$0.38), near the top of its indicative range of HK$2.50-HK$3. It said the retail tranche of the IPO was 70 times subscribed with applications from nearly one million retail investors while the international offering was "very significantly over-subscribed." Due to oversubscription, a clawback mechanism will be applied and the number of shares allocated to retail investors will be raised to 10 percent of the total 25.57 billion shares offered from the original 5 percent. Bank of China, whose Hong Kong unit is already listed here, will begin trading tomorrow.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary