Print

Mail

wiki links

World Business Quick Take

■ Shipping
Hyundai wins new order
South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries, the world's top shipbuilder, said yesterday it had won a US$1.2 billion order from France. Under the deal, Hyundai Heavy will build eight 11,400-TEU (20-foot equivalent unit) container ships for France's CMA CGM from mid-2009 to mid-2010. The latest deal brings Hyundai Heavy's order book for container ships to 45 to date this year, including 21 of over 10,000 TEUs, the company said. Hyundai Heavy has won new orders for a total of 115 vessels worth US$12.1 billion this year, already exceeding its annual target. It has a backlog of orders for 340 ships worth some US$33 billion.

■ Banking
Japan, S Korea teaming up
Japan's No. 2 bank, Mizuho Financial Group Inc, is in the final stages of separate negotiations with two major South Korean banks over possible partnerships in investment banking, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported yesterday. Mizuho Corporate Bank is seeking to team up with Shinhan Bank and Korea Development Bank, becoming the first Japanese megabank to invest in a major South Korean financial group, the report said, without citing sources. The tie-ups would involve joint financing and development of financial derivatives, and Mizuho plans to invest about ?10 billion (US$85.7 million) in Shinhan group, it said.

■ LCD Television
Toshiba invests in Poland
Toshiba Corp plans to build a liquid-crystal-display TV plant in Poland to produce large-screen units for the European market, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported yesterday. Toshiba plans to launch the plant in the middle of next year and aims to produce 1.5 million to 2 million units a year by 2009, mainly 32-inch or larger units, for sale in Europe, it said, without citing sources. The new assembly plant, to be built in Wroclaw, would triple Toshiba's current annual output to about 3 million units, the report said. Toshiba plans to invest about ?5 billion and hire some 1,000 new employees for the Polish plant, which would be its second TV assembly factory in Europe, it said.

■ Trade
Lower imbalance: expert
Finance ministers and central bank governors from the world's largest economies have to do a better job of working together to reduce widening trade imbalances and resolve other vulnerabilities, the head of the Institute of International Finance said yesterday. In a letter to the ministers and governors who will be meeting in Singapore later this week, Charles Dallara, who leads an association more than 360 financial institutions, said their talks come at a time of "heightened uncertainty about the global economy." He said growth in the US is slowing, and the world economic outlook is further clouded by inflationary pressures and persistent global imbalances.

■ China
Jan-Aug CPI up 1.2 percent
China's consumer price index rose 1.2 percent during the first eight months of the year over the same period last year, Vice Premier Zeng Peiyan (曾培炎) said yesterday. "Prices have remained at a low level, with the consumer price index growth standing at 1.2 percent from January to August compared with the same period last year," Zeng told an economic conference in Beijing. Zeng did not reveal the figure for last month alone.

This story has been viewed 1099 times.