■ Transport
Virgin America clears hurdle
A new airline called Virgin America said on Friday it had passed a major hurdle in its bid to gain approval for domestic US service, and hopes to start passenger flights by early next year. The wannabe low-cost airline has been licensed to use the "Virgin" brand by Britain's Virgin Group, but is independent from the companies headed by Richard Branson. The US company said that it had successfully passed the Federal Aviation Administration's airline certification review process, and is awaiting final approval from the Department of Transportation before taking to the skies.
■ Banking
Bank predicts low inflation
Taiwan's central bank expects inflation this year to fall below the statistics agency's forecast of 0.68 percent, Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) said on Friday in a report which is to be delivered to the Legislative Yuan tomorrow. "For the whole of this year, the annual rise in CPI will probably be below the statistics agency's forecast of 0.68 percent," Perng said in the report. In the first 11 months, the CPI rose an average of 0.59 percent from a year earlier, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said. Next year's average CPI rise will accelerate to 1.52 percent, though it is still lower than the DGBAS target of 2 percent, Perng said.
■ Industry
Goodyear, union reach deal
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co and the union representing about 12,600 US workers reached a tentative deal on a new contract that would bring an end to an 11-week strike over health care benefits. The tiremaker and the United Steelworkers union reached the deal on Friday after both sides resumed talks early this week. The strike began on Oct. 5. The deal allows Goodyear to stick with plans to close an unprofitable plant in Tyler, Texas that makes wholesale private label tires, but provides for a one-year transition period during which workers will have the opportunity to take advantage of retirement buyouts. Workers will vote at ratification meetings in their communities on Thursday.
■ finance
Brokerage heads set to quit
The two most senior executives of Nikko Cordial Corp, one of Japan's top brokerages, are expected to resign as early as tomorrow over alleged accounting irregularities, news reports said yesterday. Nikko Cordial, which has an investment banking alliance with Citigroup, plans to hold an emergency board meeting tomorrow when Nikko Cordial chairman Masashi Kaneko and chief executive Junichi Arimura are expected to resign, Japan's largest daily Yomiuri Shimbun reported. Business daily Nihon Keizai and Kyodo News agency had similar reports. On Monday, Japan's financial watchdog recommended a ?500 million (US$4.24 million) fine against Nikko Cordial for allegedly padding profits.
Industry
CTSP set for growth
The Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) is expected to have the largest congregation of 12-inch silicon wafer fabrication factories in the country, with 14 companies deciding to build their foundries there, the director of the CTSP preparatory office said yesterday. Yang Wen-ko (楊文科) said the park is currently home to 85 factories, 28 of which are precision machinery plants. There are also 25 plants manufacturing opto-electronic products in the Taichung County-based science facility.
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
New vehicle sales in Taiwan plunged about 37 percent sequentially last month as the long Lunar New Year holiday and 228 Peace Memorial Day holiday cut short the number of working days, along with the lingering uncertainty over import tax cuts on US vehicles, market researcher U-Car said in a report yesterday. New car sales last month totaled 22,043, slumping from 35,073 units in January and down 19.89 percent from 37,515 in February last year, U-Car data showed. Sales of imported luxury cars, led by Mercedes-Benz, plummeted about 45 percent to 3,109 units last month from 5,663 units in the previous month,
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