■ Banking
Bank wins offering approval
China Merchants Bank (招商銀行) said it had won regulatory approval for a multi-billion-dollar public offering in Hong Kong, the latest Chinese bank seeking to raise cash on overseas stockmarkets. In a statement to the Shanghai stock exchange released over the weekend, the lender said it had secured approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission to sell up to 2.53 billion shares. The bank must now await approval from Hong Kong regulators. The bank did not provide a date for the offering, although local media reports previously said the sale could come as early as the third quarter.
■ Oil
ONGC, Sinopec win oil bid
India's ONGC Videsh Ltd and Chinese oil major Sinopec (中國石油化工) have jointly won a US$800 million-plus bid for oil assets in Colombia, a news report said yesterday. Under the deal, ONGC and Sinopec will take a 25 percent stake each in Omimex de Colombia, a Delaware, US-based company that operates oil fields in Colombia, the Financial Express reported citing unnamed sources. The acquisition will likely to be concluded by end of this month, the report said.
■ Economics
German economy grows
The German economy, the biggest in the 12-country eurozone, grew at its fastest rate in five years in the second quarter of this year, propelled notably by a pick-up in domestic demand, official data showed yesterday. German GDP expanded by 0.9 percent quarter-on-quarter in the period from April to June, up from 0.7 percent in the preceding three months, the federal statistics office, Destatis, said in a statement. It was the fastest rate of growth since the first quarter of 2001. "While the momentum of foreign trade weakened, it was primarily investment in construction and equipment that contributed to the economic pick-up in the second quarter," the statisticians said. However, analysts are skeptical whether the German economy will be able to maintain the same momentum during the coming months. Much of the current pick-up in domestic demand is attributable to consumers bringing forward big-ticket purchases ahead of the planned rise in value-added tax from the beginning of next year.
■ Trade
US beef agreement close
South Korea and the US are nearing an agreement to resume imports of US beef suspended over fears of mad cow disease, a government official said yesterday. "We are in the final stage of negotiations," said Park Hyun-chool of the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry's livestock bureau. Park gave no time frame, saying only that the market would open after the US addresses South Korean concerns over how beef at US slaughterhouses is processed. South Korea was the third-largest foreign market for US beef after Japan and Mexico when it shut its doors in December 2003, when the US reported its first case of mad cow disease. The government agreed in January to allow imports of beef from US cattle younger than 30 months, but the reopening has stalled over measures to ensure meat safety. South Korea wants US beef processed separately from foreign beef in US facilities. It also wants equipment used on older cows to not be used to process the younger ones.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft