■ China
Trade surplus a challenge
China's surging trade surplus is the country's main short-term economic challenge as it attempts to revamp its economy to one more dependent on consumption than investment, the World Bank said yesterday. Economy slowed slightly in the third quarter of the year, but still experienced double-digit growth as exports continued to outpace imports by a large margin, the bank said in its quarterly report on China's economy. The bank said economic growth in the third quarter of the year slowed to 10.4 percent, from 11.3 percent in the second quarter -- the fastest rate in a decade -- after tightening measures reduced investment growth.
■ Electronics
Celestica, HCL strike deal
Canada's Celestica Inc and Indian outsourcing major HCL Technologies have agreed to jointly design, manufacture and sell electronic components in a deal expected to yield nearly US$100 million for the Indian partner over the next five years. Under the deal announced yesterday, HCL Technologies Ltd will set up a new center in southern India to design electronic hardware and provide after-sales services for Celestica's customers, while Celestica manufactures and markets the products. Sales proceeds will be split depending on what each partner does. The two companies plan to set up a joint marketing team to oversee the arrangement.
■ Electronics
PS3 lacks legacy support
Sony's PlayStation 3 game console, which went on sale in Japan over the weekend leading off a global launch, can't play some of the older games for the original PlayStation and PlayStation 2, a company official said yesterday. Sony Corp had billed PlayStation 3 as compatible with the previous PlayStation machines. But Sony Computer Enter-tainment spokesman Satoshi Fukuoka said some of the 8,000 older games weren't working properly on PS3, making the wrong sounds or images, and some couldn't be played at all. He declined to give a number for the games that weren't functioning, but he said the same problem is expected when the game console goes on sale in the US on Friday.
■ Electronics
Zune makes its debut
Microsoft Corp expects wireless song and photo sharing to be the feature that helps it challenge the dominant iPod in the market for portable music players, chief executive Steve Ballmer said on Monday. The world's largest software maker yesterday launched its 30-gigabyte Zune and started selling songs to US buyers at the online Zune Marketplace, in a challenge to Apple Computer Inc's iTunes music store. The Zune sells for US$249.
■ Aerospace
Airbus ups outsourcing
The European plane maker Airbus will outsource a much larger share of the work on the proposed A350 XWB aircraft to reduce development costs for its parent company EADS, the Financial Times reported yesterday. Citing senior Airbus executives, the newspaper said that an estimated US$3.5 billion dollars worth of work could be farmed out, and that the percentage of airframe work being outsourced would increase from 30 percent to 50 percent. The European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company has not yet decided to build the A350 XWB -- a twin-engine, long-haul plane designed to compete with Boeing's 777 and 787 models -- but is expected to shortly.
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
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
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)