■ ELECTRONICS
Toshiba sells building
Toshiba said yesterday it is selling its building in Tokyo's plush Ginza district for ?161 billion (US$1.4 million) to concentrate on its core electronics businesses. Japanese electronics maker Toshiba Corp, which has been trying to strengthen its computer chips and gadget operations, said the sale of the building to Tokyo Land Corp will be completed next month. "This sale will increase the corporate value of Toshiba through realization of a fair value for the Ginza Toshiba Building and allowing concentration of resources in core businesses," it said.
■ AUTOMOBILES
Chery sees exports doubling
China's Chery Automobile Co (奇瑞汽車), a fast-growing private company, expects to double its exports this year from last year to 100,000 cars, a senior executive said yesterday. The rapid expansion of overseas shipments will help the nimble auto maker toward the ambitious goal of selling 1 million cars annually by 2010, company vice president Zhou Biren (周必仁) said. Chery, which was established just a decade ago, said its main markets abroad included the former Soviet republics, the Middle East and South America. Zhou confirmed that Chery intends to sell shares to the public, but gave few other details.
■ SINGAPORE
New berths to be built
A consortium led by Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co will build 16 new berths in Singapore to enable the island state to handle growing demand for container capacity, the Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) of Singapore said yesterday. In a statement, the MPA said the project will add 14 million twenty foot equivalent units (TEU) to Pasir Panjang terminal's container handling capacity. The authority said work on the new berths will commence in the last quarter of this year and will take about six years to complete.
■ AVIATION
Qantas adds green tax
Australia's flagship Qantas Airways Ltd and its popular budget carrier Jetstar launched a program yesterday allowing passengers to pay extra to offset the greenhouse emissions their flights cause. The scheme allows travelers to calculate the per-passenger emissions of their flights and buy carbon dioxide credits that would be paid to a variety of environmental projects, the airline said in a statement. A flight from Australia to Los Angeles generates around 1.4 tonnes of greenhouse gases per passenger, which the airline says can be offset by paying just A$17 (US$14.50) per flight. The money would be spent on government-approved carbon dioxide abatement schemes.
■ INDUSTRY
Mitsubishi eyes partnership
Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd plans to enter the market for power plant facilities in Russia under a tie-up with conglomerate Renova Group, a newspaper said yesterday. The partnership, which is expected to be announced in the next few days, will make Mitsubishi Heavy the first Japanese heavy electric machinery manufacturer to enter the Russian power systems market, the Nikkei Shimbun said. Under the plan, Mitsubishi will transfer its latest gas turbine technology to Ural Turbine Works, a unit of the Renova Group, the report said, without revealing sources. Ural Turbine intends to double or triple output capacity from five turbines a year.
RESTRAINTS: Should China’s actions pose any threat to Taiwan’s security, economic or social systems, China would be excluded from major financial institutions, the bill says The US House of Representatives on Monday passed the PROTECT Taiwan Act, which states that Washington would exclude China from participating in major global financial organizations if its actions directly threaten Taiwan’s security. The bill, proposed by Republican Representative Frank Lucas, passed with 395 votes in favor and two against. It stipulates that if China’s actions pose any threat to Taiwan’s security, economic or social systems, the US would, “to the maximum extent practicable,” exclude Beijing from international financial institutions, including the G20, the Bank for International Settlements and the Financial Stability Board. The bill makes it clear that China must be prepared
Taiwanese trade negotiators told Washington that Taipei would not relocate 40 percent of its semiconductor production to the US, and that its most advanced technologies would remain in the nation, Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) said on Sunday. “I told the US side very clearly — that’s impossible,” Cheng, who led the negotiation team, said in an interview that aired on Sunday night on Chinese Television System. Cheng was referring to remarks last month by US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, in which he said his goal was to bring 40 percent of Taiwan’s chip supply chain to the US Taiwan’s almost
PEACE AT LAST? UN experts had warned of threats and attacks ahead of the voting, but after a turbulent period, Bangladesh has seemingly reacted to the result with calm The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) yesterday celebrated a landslide victory in the first elections held since a deadly 2024 uprising, with party leader Tarique Rahman to become prime minister. Bangladesh Election Commission figures showed that the BNP alliance had won 212 seats, compared with 77 for the Islamist-led Jamaat-e-Islami alliance. The US embassy congratulated Rahman and the BNP for a “historic victory,” while India praised Rahman’s “decisive win” in a significant step after recent rocky relations with Bangladesh. China and Pakistan, which grew closer to Bangladesh since the uprising and the souring of ties with India, where ousted Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina
The Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) yesterday released the first images from its Formosat-8A satellite, featuring high-resolution views of Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區), Tainan’s Anping District (安平), Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor (興達港), Japan’s National Stadium in Tokyo and Barcelona airport. Formosat-8A, named the “Chi Po-lin Satellite” after the late Taiwanese documentary filmmaker Chi Po-lin (齊柏林), was launched on Nov. 29 last year. It is designed to capture images at a 1m resolution, which can be sharpened to 0.7m after processing, surpassing the capabilities of its predecessor, Formosat-5, the agency said. It is the first of TASA’s eight-satellite Formosat-8 constellation to be sent into orbit and
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