■OIL
Price up on supply worries
Oil prices rose to US$73 a barrel in Asia yesterday on expectations that OPEC would cut production quotas at an extraordinary meeting later this week. Light, sweet crude for delivery next month rose US$1.16 to US$73.01 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midday in Singapore. OPEC president Chakib Khelil said on Sunday that members planned to announce a “substantial” cut at a meeting that begins on Friday inVienna. Khelil, who is also Algeria’s energy minister, said OPEC may cut output again at a meeting in December and that the group considers the oil market oversupplied by about 2 million barrels a day.
■REFINING
Technip wins Gdansk work
Technip SA, Europe’s second-largest oilfield-services provider, won a 70 million-euro (US$95 million) contract from Poland’s Grupa Lotos SA for work at its Gdansk refinery. The agreement covers engineering and procurement services for a new solvent de-asphalting unit, Paris-based Technip said yesterday in a statement distributed by Business Wire. It’s Technip’s third contract from Lotos in the past year, the company said. The new unit will have a feed capacity of 180 tonnes an hour, the statement said.
■FINANCE
Italy welcomes fund limits
Italy wants sovereign wealth funds to limit their stakes in Italian companies to less than 5 percent, the daily Messaggero quoted Foreign Minister Franco Frattini as saying yesterday. “Italy trusts the funds that operate in a transparent manner and whose goal is investment rather than taking control of companies, and therefore stay under 5 percent,” Frattini said. “There are sectors in which intervention by the funds is particularly welcome, such as infrastructure, transport and tourism,” he said. “But, for example, on defense, we want industrial cooperation rather than capital investment.”
■AVIATION
Hong Kong traffic down
The number of passengers traveling through Hong Kong’s airport dropped 4.7 percent year-on-year last month to 3.8 million as the global financial crisis hit the aviation industry, Hong Kong Airport Authority said yesterday. Cargo also dropped, with 317,000 tonnes handled last month, down 7.5 percent on the previous year, the figures showed. The number of flights edged down 0.4 percent to 24,570. The reduction in passengers was mainly the result of fewer visitors to the territory, while travel by Hong Kong residents and transit passengers also decreased slightly, the figures showed.
■JAPAN
Economy still weak: official
The economy is expected to remain stagnant for some time with a global slowdown weighing on exports, Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa told a meeting of the bank’s branch managers yesterday. Corporate earnings in Asia’s largest economy are shrinking and companies are cutting their capital investment, Shirakawa said. “The economy of our nation is currently stagnant due in part to slower exports stemming from the lingering effects of high energy and material prices and a slowdown in overseas economies,” he said. Business confidence remains cautious, while consumption has turned softer due to inflation and sluggish wages, Shirakawa said. The economy suffered its worst contraction in seven years in the second quarter and many analysts believe it is already in recession.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has
China is mischaracterizing UN Resolution 2758 for its own interests by conflating it with its “one China” principle, US Deputy Assistant Secretary for China and Taiwan Mark Lambert said on Monday. Speaking at a seminar held by the German Marshall Fund, Lambert called for support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the international community at a time when China is increasingly misusing Resolution 2758. The resolution had a clear impact when it changed who occupied the China seat at the UN, Lambert said. “Today, however, the PRC [People’s Republic of China] increasingly mischaracterizes and misuses Resolution 2758 to serve its own interests,” Lambert said. “Beijing