■TRADE
India, S Korea ink pac
gned a free trade deal yesterday that a minister said had the potential to nearly double the more than US$15 billion in annual trade between Asia’s third and fourth-biggest economies in the next decade. The deal requires ratification by South Korea’s parliament, but can take effect without further steps by India, South Korea’s trade ministry said. The deal will eliminate tariffs on three quarters of India’s imports from South Korea by value, and more than 80 percent of South Korea’s imports from India.
■ECONOMY
‘Free fall’ over, ECB says
The world’s economic “free fall” is over but “uncertainty” still remains, European Central Bank (ECB) chief Jean-Claude Trichet told RTL radio yesterday. “We are still in a period of contraction of the economic activity,” Trichet said. “We are coming out of the period of free fall.” But he warned against being too optimistic. “The zone of uncertainty in which we have been since the crisis intensified in mid-September 2008 is not yet behind us,” he said.
■BANKING
DBS profits slump
Singapore’s DBS Group Holdings Ltd said yesterday that profit in the second quarter fell 15 percent from a year earlier as bad debt charges jumped amid a sluggish regional economic recovery. DBS, Southeast Asia’s biggest bank, reported earnings of S$552 million (US$384 million) for the three months ended June 30, down from a profit of S$652 million in the same period last year. The bank said it took allowances for loans and other losses of S$466 million for the second quarter, up from S$56 million a year ago.
■ELECTRONICS
Sanyo to invest in solar
Japan’s Sanyo Electric Co said yesterday that it would boost its solar panel production capacity by 30 percent within the next two years to meet surging demand fueled by government subsidies. Sanyo will invest about ¥4.2 billion (US$44 million) in a domestic plant in Shiga Prefecture to double the facility’s annual production capacity to 200,000 kilowatts, company spokeswoman Kumiko Makino said. In total, Sanyo’s solar panel production capacity will rise to 450,000 kilowatts, she said.
■INSURANCE
Allianz 2Q profit advances
German insurer Allianz SE said yesterday its second quarter net profit rose 21 percent as its life and health insurance business improved and said it was adjusting to the “new normal” of reduced returns. The Munich-based company said it made 1.9 billion euros (US$2.7 billion) in the April-June period, up from 1.5 billion euros in the second quarter of last year. Revenues for the quarter were slightly higher at 22.2 billion euros, compared with last year’s 21.5 billion euros.
■BANKING
Top official resigns
Societe Generale SA says that a top executive whose career was damaged by the French bank’s multibillion dollar trading scandal last year has resigned. Jean-Pierre Mustier is the former head of corporate and investment banking and one-time boss of disgraced trader Jerome Kerviel. Societe Generale SA said in a statement on Wednesday that Mustier and Robert Day, a board member, were told by the financial watchdog AMF that its sanctions committee was opening an insider trading inquiry.
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
J-6 REMODEL: The converted drones are part of Beijing’s expanding mix of airpower weapons, including bombers with stand-off missiles and UAV swarms, the report said China has stationed obsolete supersonic fighters converted to attack drones at six air bases close to the Taiwan Strait, a report published this month by the Arlington, Virginia-based Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said. Satellite imagery of the airfields from the institute’s “China Airpower Tracker” shows what appear to be lines of stubby, swept-winged aircraft matching the shape of J-6 fighters that first flew with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force in the 1960s. Since their conversion to drones, the aircraft have been identified at five bases in China’s Fujian Province and one in Guangdong Province, the report said. J.
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