■AUTOMAKERS
Toyota moving China plant
Toyota Motor Corp, the world’s largest automaker by value, will spend 3.6 billion yuan (US$524 million) to relocate a factory in China by the first half of 2010 and more than double the plant’s production capacity. Toyota will move the factory, a joint venture with FAW Group Corp (第一汽車), from Chengdu to another part of the city, the company said on its Web site yesterday. The company said it plans to increase annual production capacity to 30,000 vehicles from 13,000 units.
■COPPER
Codelco to sell Chile stake
Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer, said it will sell a majority stake in a copper and gold deposit in northern Chile. The government-owned copper producer is seeking a buyer for 66 percent of its Inca de Oro deposit, which also holds molybdenum, a statement sent on Friday by e-mail said.
■RICE
Thai exports set to rise
Thai rice exports should hit 10 million tonnes this year, because prices are falling away following record highs two months ago, the Thai Rice Exporters Association said in reports yesterday. Several countries, including Iran, Indonesia and Nigeria, delayed ordering rice earlier this year from Thailand, the world’s biggest exporter, as prices climbed. The benchmark 100 percent grade B white Thai rice reached US$1,038 a tonne in mid-May as big producers China, India and Vietnam curbed exports. Last year, Thailand’s rice exports hit a historic high of 9.55 million tonnes, earning the country US$3.6 billion.
■AGRICULTURE
Mercosur drought to ease
Argentina and Uruguay will get enough rain in the next two weeks to ease a dry spell, improving the outlook for this year’s crops, the Buenos Aires Cereals Exchange said. Rains will alleviate dry conditions in the central and eastern parts of the Mercosur farmland region, which also includes Brazil and Paraguay, climatologist Eduardo Sierra wrote in the exchange’s weekly weather report. Argentine farmers will probably plant 16 percent less wheat than last year, partly because of dry weather and rising fertilizer costs, the Agriculture Secretariat said on June 19.
■ECONOMY
Iran inflation tops 26 percent
Iran’s inflation rate, which has provoked intense criticism of the government, topped 26 percent last month, according to a central bank statement published in the press yesterday. “During the Iranian month of Kordad [to June 20] inflation reached 26.4 percent compared with the same month a year ago,” the statement published in the economic newspaper Sarmayeh said. The previous month, annual inflation was running at 25.3 percent. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been blamed by many economists for directly fueling the price rises by plowing huge amounts of cash into the economy to fund local infrastructure projects.
■TELECOMS
BCE agrees to takeover
BCE Inc, Canada’s largest telecommunications company, said on Friday it has agreed on terms of a US$35 billion sale to a takeover group led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. The announcement ends suspense over whether the banks funding the takeover — the largest leveraged buyout ever and Canada’s biggest buyout of any kind — would try to back out of the deal or that the price would have to be lowered. The acquisition price remains at C$42.75 (US$42.08) per share in cash.
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
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
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘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)