■ INFLATION
Beijing orders faster food
China's government has issued a wide-reaching order to speed up food shipments to markets as the bad winter lashing much of the country hampers efforts to rein in persisting inflation. The order, issued late on Friday and published in state media yesterday, calls on police, railway bureaus and even gas stations to do all they can to ensure timely delivery of food supplies after snow and ice storms clogged roads, cut electricity and delayed deliveries. Under the measure, food trucks will be exempt from paying road tolls. Potential shortages in food and energy would add to inflationary pressures.
■ BANKING
Crisis followed FSA 'failure'
The Northern Rock crisis has revealed systemic failures at Britain's financial regulator after it failed to spot the reckless behavior of the bank's directors, British lawmakers said in a report published yesterday. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) failed to properly supervise Northern Rock, Britain's fifth-largest mortgage lender, the Treasury select committee said. The report recommended the FSA improve its communications procedures to prevent panic in the future as well as an expanded role for the central bank's deputy governor, who would advise the Treasury chief on potential crises. The FSA said it was studying the report and would release the conclusions of an internal review in March.
■ AVIATION
China to build 100 airports
China yesterday announced plans to build nearly 100 new airports by 2020 to cater for soaring demand. The proposals will mean eight out of every 10 residents will live within 100km of an airport within 12 years, the General Administration of Civil Aviation said. It put the cost of building the 97 new airports at 450 billion yuan (US$61.6 billion). Air traffic volume rose 16 percent to 185 million passengers last year, official figures show. The General Administration predicts passenger traffic will grow by 11.4 percent a year between now and 2020, and freight traffic by 14 percent.
■ FOOD
Dunkin' to enter Shanghai
Dunkin' Brands Inc, the owner of the Dunkin' Donuts chain, will open up its first shop in Shanghai this year and plans to have 100 stores in China in the next decade. The first store might open in May, Michelle King, a spokeswoman for the Canton, Massachusetts-based firm, said on Friday. Dunkin' Brands recently granted franchisee rights for Dunkin' Donuts for Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang to Mercuries & Associates Ltd (三商行), which is the company's partner in Taiwan. Dunkin' Donuts opened its first outlet in Taiwan last January.
■ WTO
Green light for Ukraine
The WTO agreed on Friday to accept Ukraine as a member, giving President Viktor Yushchenko a powerful new sales pitch as he made the case here for greater foreign investment. WTO membership also will require the former Soviet republic to continue reforms aimed at bringing Ukraine closer to the EU, which it has aims of ultimately joining. Yushchenko said joining the body could also improve Ukraine's troubled trade relations with Russia, which also aspires to WTO membership but still has numerous issues to resolve. The WTO's 151-member general council will formally invite Ukraine to join on Feb. 5, after which the country still must sign the accession treaty.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
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
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
A new worry has been rippling across the stock market lately: Entire businesses, not just their employees, might be thrown out of work. While most economists say fears of an artificial intelligence (AI) job apocalypse are overblown, seismic shifts have happened in the past after big tech breakthroughs. The IT revolution of the 1990s led to a surge in productivity that sped up the US economy for several years. It also rendered companies or even industries largely redundant — from travel agents and stockbrokers to classified advertising and newspapers, or video rental stores. Economists expect AI would deliver higher productivity,
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