■ Automobiles
Suzuki plans US campaign
Japanese carmaker Suzuki Motor aims to triple its vehicle sales in the US within about two years by boosting dealerships and product line-ups to woo customers, an official said yesterday. Suzuki aims to lift annual US sales to about 200,000 vehicles in 2005, compared with slightly below 70,000 estimated for this year, the official said. In order to achieve the sales goal, the company will boost the number of dealerships by some 30 percent to 600 by the end of next year, he said. Suzuki incurred an operating loss of ?3.5 billion (US$33 million) in its North American business in the six months to September with large sales to corporate customers yielding only slim profit margins.
■ Trade
China drops steel tariffs
China has lifted its steel import tariffs, responding to a US decision earlier this month to drop tariffs on steel imports, a news report said yesterday. "In view of the latest developments in the steel trade, the Ministry of Commerce has decided to terminate its safeguard steps starting Dec. 26," the ministry said in a statement, according to the official news agency Xinhua. China, the world's largest steel importer, slapped tariffs of up to 26 percent on five steel products in November last year. The move followed a decision by the US to impose tariffs of up to 30 percent on steel imports in March last year, which violated international trade law, according to a WTO ruling last month. The US dropped the safeguards after the WTO decision.
■ Toys
FAO Schwarz sells assets
Bankrupt US toy retailer FAO said Friday it had signed a deal to sell its assets to an investment group, which averts a shutdown of its famed FAO Schwarz store on New York's Fifth Avenue. The company said the sale, for about US$20 million, to VGACS Acquisition, a subsidiary of DE Shaw Laminar Portfolios, was subject to approval of the supervising bankruptcy court. Under the deal, the investment group, backed by financier David Shaw, would acquire FAO's New York and Las Vegas store leases, as well as its catalog and Internet assets. But FAO Inc was to sell the remaining inventory in these stores before temporary closings after which they would be turned over to the new owners for re-opening next year. FAO, which is based in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, said it would ask the court to approve the deal or accept a better bid by Jan. 22.
■ Internet
Hermit Kingdom goes online
A Berlin entrepreneur said Friday that he had signed a deal with North Korean officials to bring Internet access to the country beginning in mid-February, a date chosen to coincide with leader Kim Jong-Il's birthday. Jan Holtermann, a former banker and one-time employee of the North Korean embassy in Berlin, told reporters that the project would involve the use of filtering software similar to that in place in Chinese and Cuban networks. "We started from the assumption that the North Korean government would be very selective in granting access to the Internet," he said. A select group of handpicked users will be allowed to send e-mail, and only a few will be able to view information on the web. Holtermann said that the company he founded for the project, KCC Europe, had signed a contract on Jan. 17 after negotiating with North Korean officials.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
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