JAPAN
Minister pans BOJ’s clarity
The Bank of Japan (BOJ) should communicate its inflation goal more clearly, Minister of State for Economic and Fiscal Policy Motohisa Furukawa said. “It’s desirable for the BOJ to consider whether there’s a better way for the public to understand its inflation policy,” Furukawa said on NHK’s Sunday Debate program yesterday. The nation’s central bank has avoided setting an explicit inflation goal. Some lawmakers have pushed to revise the country’s law to force the central bank to adopt an inflation target to help conquer more than a decade of falling prices. The BOJ will review whether to begin referring to its so-called price stability understanding as a target during a meeting that begins today, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
STOCK MARKETS
Shares hit Chinese markets
An added 16.09 billion yuan (US$2.56 billion) of shares in 22 companies will be available for trading today on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges after lockup periods expired, according to Xinhua news agency. Newly tradeable shares in Southwest Securities Co (西南證券), China Shipbuilding Industry Co (中國船舶重工) and Jiangsu-based jean-fabric maker Black Peony Group Co (黑牡丹集團) account for more than 12 billion yuan of the total, based on Friday closing prices, Xinhua said, citing the stock exchanges. The value of shares freed from lockup periods more than tripled from the previous week, according to the report.
AVIATION
Airlines call for UN’s help
Global airlines yesterday called for a deal brokered by a UN agency to avoid an impasse between China and the EU over jet pollution spilling into a trade war. China’s decision to order its airlines not to join an EU carbon trading scheme and the EU’s refusal so far to back down on its plans, have wedged airlines between conflicting laws, Tony Tyler, the head of the International Air Transport Association, said in an interview. He also said airlines faced a tough year this year and warned of further airline bankruptcies in Europe or elsewhere if the region failed to resolve its sovereign debt crisis.
BANKING
Swiss bank skips court date
The US Department of Justice called Switzerland’s largest private bank a fugitive from justice after it did not send any representatives to a court hearing in New York, where it has been charged with conspiring with US clients to hide US$1.2 billion from the US Internal Revenue Service. Wegelin & Co is said to have helped at least 100 US clients conceal huge sums of money from the US tax agency in overseas accounts. Federal prosecutors said the bank recruited US customers who were concerned about possible prosecution for tax violations at home, including some that had already pulled money out of other Swiss banks.
BANKING
UK bankers arrested
An unspecified number of employees at unidentified UK banks are among a “number” of people arrested as part of an investigation into “tax-related criminal offenses,” the country’s customs and revenue service said. “As a result of an ongoing investigation into tax-related criminal offenses,” the service “has arrested a number of people, some of whom work for UK banks,” a spokesperson said by telephone. “This investigation relates to the actions of the people arrested in relation to their own financial affairs and is not connected to the business activities of the banks.”
‘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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