The first Rolls-Royce showroom opened in India yesterday to woo the nation's growing band of rich entrepreneurs with the ultimate symbol of luxury and status.
Rolls-Royce, once the car of choice of the maharajas during British colonial rule, has sold about 10 models in the past year with Indian buyers customizing their purchases with woven family crests, officials said.
The Navnit Motors dealership said it hoped to grow and sell up to 30 cars a year from a showroom in Mumbai, targeting entrepreneurs and industrialists.
The current offering, the Phantom, has a price tag of nearly US$1 million, said Navnit marketing director Sharad Kachalia, whose company sells cars, yachts and jets to India's wealthiest.
"Young entrepreneurs are making good money and this is where we see some looking for an ultimate statement," Kachalia said. "To earn such an ornament in life is an achievement for anyone."
The potential buyers -- generally aged between 20 and 45 with the majority in Mumbai and involved in pharmaceuticals, construction and the media -- go for personal stamps on their cars, Kachalia said.
"Many ask for details like the family crest embroidered on the headrests, stitching on the leather seats and for their own name on the dashboard," he said.
India's economy expanded 8.4 percent in the fiscal year through March, surpassing forecasts, due to a surge in farm production and manufacturing output in the last quarter, the government said yesterday.
In its annual ranking of the world's richest people released in March, Forbes Magazine labeled India as the "rising star" in the firmament of the fabulously wealthy.
It said there were 23 Indian billionaires with a combined net worth of US$99 billion, an increase of 60 percent from the year before.
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
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘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)