■ Soy Sauce
Kikkoman plans expansion
Kikkoman Corp, the world's largest producer of soy sauce products, announced plans for a US$100 million expansion over 10 years of its plant near Lake Geneva. Yuzaburo Mogi, president and chief executive officer, made the announcement Friday before the start of an economic development conference here on revit-alizing the economies of the US and Japan. Kikkoman first opened the factory in 1973 as its US headquarters. It originally produced 9.08 million liters of soy sauce and related products a year and now produces 94.63 million liters a year. With the expan-sion, annual production at the plant is projected as growing to 128.70 million liters. Mogi said the first US$13 million of the expansion would come in the first year.
■ Free trade
LDC's meet in Bangladesh
Trade ministers and officials from some of the world's poorest nations gathered in Bangladesh yesterday to hash out a unified position on trade concessions from rich countries. Ministers and officials from 35 Asian and African nations categorized by the UN as least developed countries were expected to adopt a declaration ahead of the WTO's ministerial meeting scheduled for September in Cancun, Mexico. Bangladesh Commerce Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury said Friday that the free movement of people from developing nations to industrialized countries would be a key issue at the three-day meeting. Chowdhury said developing nations will also ask industrialized nations not to apply antidumping clauses against their products.
■ Airlines
JAL forces staff to take leave
Japan Airlines Co (JAL) has decided to ask all its employees to take unpaid leave to offset a sharp drop in demand following the outbreak of SARS, a news report said yesterday. Asia's biggest carrier will ask its workers to take one month of unpaid leave, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. The airline has already asked cabin crews to take unpaid leave, affecting about 7,000 of its domestic work force of around 18,000. The recent sharp cutback in the number of flights due to the SARS outbreak has forced the airline to expand the program to include about 11,000 ground staff, pilots and other employees, the newspaper said. The company expects the move to help cut costs by hundreds of millions of yen, the Nihon Keizai said.
■ IRAQi development
Singapore to reap windfall
Businesses here are lining up for contracts to help rebuild Iraq as part of a "war windfall" Singapore is to reap for supporting the U.S.-led strikes, a newspaper reported Saturday. "More than 50 local companies, spanning the infrastructure, business services, health care and shipping sectors have expressed interest in this war windfall," the <
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
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