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World Business Quick Take

■ Gaming
Sony to launch virtual world
Capitalizing on the rising popularity of social networks and online worlds, Sony will launch its own virtual universe and another 3-D game built almost entirely by players. Home is a real-time, networked world for the PlayStation 3 in which players create human-looking characters called avatars. They can buy clothing, furniture and videos to play on a virtual flat-screen television in their virtual apartments. The concept is strikingly similar to Linden Lab's Second Life, a Web-based phenomenon with nearly 4.5 million residents. But Sony's world will feature heavy doses of video games for avatars to play, as well as virtual arcades, music, movies and other Sony-approved media downloads.

■ China
Foreign tax breaks to end
Chinese lawmakers took up a measure yesterday to end nearly three decades of blanket tax breaks for foreign investors in a step that will raise the tax burden for many companies. The proposed law, which is expected to pass, would unify the tax rate for foreign-financed companies with those of Chinese enterprises at 25 percent. Under the current system, Chinese companies pay 33 percent of profits in tax. By contrast, new foreign investors are exempt from taxes for two years, get a 50 percent cut for three more and after that can receive breaks that keep rates as low as 10 percent.

■ Aviation
787 assembly to start in Q2
Boeing Co will start assembling the first 787 Dreamliner in the second quarter and anticipates the passenger jet's initial test flight at the end of August, its chief financial officer said on Wednesday. James Bell told investors that Boeing continues to devote significant research and development spending to resolving weight and timing challenges with the 787, but said they were typical of a new airplane development program at this stage. The company has received 464 firm orders for the 787 and plans to deliver 112 in the two years after the initial delivery in May next year.

■ Securities
Nikko Cordial rejects Citi
Citigroup's bid for Nikko Cordial has hit a stumbling block after the biggest shareholder in the scandal-hit Japanese brokerage firm reportedly rebuffed the offer as being too low. "In our view, the long-term value of Nikko Cordial is in excess of ¥2,000 billion [US$17.2 billion]," Harris Associates fund manager David Herro told the Financial Times in an interview published yesterday. "Therefore, though we value Citi's interest, we could not accept their tender offer of roughly ¥1,350 billion," he added. Harris Associates owns about 7.5 percent of Nikko Cordial, which is the subject of a US$10.7 billion takeover attempt by Citigroup.

■ Semiconductors
Qimonda to expand JV
Qimonda, a memory chipmaker spun off from German semiconductor giant Infineon, yesterday said it will invest 250 million euros (US$327 million) in facilities in China. The investment over a three-year period will double production at Qimonda's current joint-venture memory chip plant in Suzhou City, a company statement said. "Growth in our front-end capacities, with more than two-thirds of our DRAM bits shipped now produced on 300 millimeter manufacturing lines, clearly requires an increase in our backend capacities," Qimonda's chief executive Kin Wah Loh (羅建華) said.

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