■CHINA
Regulator to track loans
China’s banking regulator said it will ensure loans enter the “real economy” and restrict financing to sectors that are energy-intensive, bad for the environment and facing overcapacity. The regulator will watch changes in the real estate market and enforce related loan policies, the China Banking Regulatory Commission said in a statement on its Web site after its annual meeting. It will support areas such as agriculture and small companies, and reinforce risk controls, the regulator said.
■LOGISTICS
Germany tops survey
Germany emerged top and Singapore second on Friday in a new World Bank logistics survey that measures how efficiently countries trade their goods around the world. Sweden was adjudged the next most trade-friendly nation in the study hailed by the Washington-based institution as “the most comprehensive world survey of international freight forwarders and express carriers.” High-income economies dominated the top logistics rankings, with most of them occupying important places in global and regional supply chains, the 155-nation “Logistics Performance Indicators” study showed. By contrast, the 10 worst-performing countries were all from the low and lower income groups.
■INTERNET
Bing search share grows
Microsoft’s new Internet search engine Bing posted a modest gain in its share of the US search market last month while partner Yahoo saw its share dip slightly, online tracking firm comScore said. Google remained the overwhelming leader of the lucrative US search and advertising market last month, increasing its share to 65.7 percent from 65.6 percent in November, comScore figures released on Friday showed. Yahoo saw its share of the search market fall to 17.3 percent last month from 17.5 percent the previous month, comScore said, while Bing’s share rose to 10.7 percent from 10.3 percent.
■INTERNET
AmEx buys payment firm
American Express (AmEx) said on Friday it had completed its acquisition of Revolution Money, a Web payments firm started in 2005 by Internet firm AOL founder Steve Case. With the US$300 million acquisition, AmEx is taking aim at the growing market for online and alternative payments, in a challenge to recognized leader PayPal, analysts said. PayPal, a unit of eBay, has been able to dominate in this area but others such as Google Checkout have struggled, analysts say.
■FOOD
Pershing pushes for bid
Pershing Square Capital Management LP, a New York hedge fund run by activist investor William Ackman, has amassed a 2 percent stake in Kraft Foods Inc and has encouraged the food giant to pursue an acquisition of Cadbury Plc. The purchases, confirmed by Kraft and Ackman on Friday, comes as Kraft nears a deadline to make its final bid for Cadbury. The stake of nearly 33 million shares is now Pershing’s largest single investment, Ackman said.
■MEDIA
Affiliated plans bankruptcy
Affiliated Media Inc, the holding company for MediaNews Group Inc newspapers including the Denver Post and San Jose Mercury News, said on Friday that it plans to become the latest owner of US newspapers to file for bankruptcy. The company said it would file a “prepackaged” plan already approved by lenders, which should allow it to emerge from bankruptcy more quickly.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
RESHAPING COMMERCE: Major industrialized economies accepted 15 percent duties on their products, while charges on items from Mexico, Canada and China are even bigger US President Donald Trump has unveiled a slew of new tariffs that boosted the average US rate on goods from across the world, forging ahead with his turbulent effort to reshape international commerce. The baseline rates for many trading partners remain unchanged at 10 percent from the duties Trump imposed in April, easing the worst fears of investors after the president had previously said they could double. Yet his move to raise tariffs on some Canadian goods to 35 percent threatens to inject fresh tensions into an already strained relationship, while nations such as Switzerland and New Zealand also saw increased
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