■AUTOMAKERS
Nissan slashing production
Nissan Motor Co said yesterday it would slash domestic production by 64,000 vehicles next month and in March to trim inventories and adjust to a drastic slide in global demand. The bad news comes on the heels of media reports yesterday that Japan’s No. 3 automaker was likely to post an operating loss in the fiscal year through March, joining a growing list of big Japanese corporate names expected to slide into the red. The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s top-selling newspaper, and Kyodo News agency reported Nissan would sink into operating losses for the fiscal year through March. That would mark its first operating loss under chief executive Carlos Ghosn.
■STEEL
POSCO sales hit record
South Korea’s top steelmaker POSCO said yesterday its net profit and sales hit a record high last year, helped by high prices in the first nine months. Net profit was 4.45 trillion won (US$3.24 billion) last year, up 21 percent from 3.68 trillion won a year earlier, the world’s fourth-largest steelmaker said. Operating profit jumped 52 percent year-on-year to 6.54 trillion won. Sales soared 38 percent to an all-time high of 30.6 trillion won. POSCO attributed the good results to a cost-saving drive, strong sales of value-added products, and high prices before demand fell sharply in the fourth quarter. It predicted sales would fall by up to 12 percent this year.
■NEW ZEALAND
PM warns of stagnation
The country faces the prospect of no economic growth and a jump in unemployment this year because of the impact of the global financial crisis, Prime Minister John Key said yesterday. Key said the international situation had deteriorated since last month and that the country was moving closer to the “downside scenario” put forward by the Treasury at the end of last year. “If that scenario plays out, the economy in 2009 will stand still,” he said at a press conference after meeting senior economic ministers. He said unemployment could rise to 7 percent later in the year from the latest figure of 4.2 percent and rise to 7.5 percent next year.
■SEMICONDUCTORS
Sanyo to cut 1,200 jobs
Sanyo Electric Co said yesterday it would cut 1,200 jobs in Japan and overseas as part of efforts to turn around its struggling semiconductor operations amid the economic downturn. “In our semiconductor and related businesses we will cut 800 domestic positions and 400 positions overseas — in total 1,200 — including regular and temporary workers,” Sanyo vice president Koichi Maeda told a news conference. Earlier in the day Sanyo, which is being bought by rival Panasonic Corp, forecast zero net profit for the current financial year to March owing to weak sales of electronics devices and semiconductors, as well as the stronger yen.
■CHINA
Economy takes a hard hit
Morgan Stanley Asia chairman Stephen Roach said yesterday that China, which relies heavily on its export sector, had been hit particularly hard by the slowdown. The country’s growth in the second half of the year “basically went to zero,” Roach said. “For an economy that needs 6 percent growth to prevent unemployment from rising and to limit the outbreak of social instability, a major shortfall we saw in China in the second half of last year is very, very worrisome,” he said. He said Beijing needed a strong fiscal stimulus package, but also had to focus on boosting consumer spending.
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
‘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)
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