Tokyo prosecutors yesterday raided two major construction firms over suspicions that they colluded to secure contracts for Japan’s multibillion-dollar maglev project that is to see trains running at 500kph.
The state-of-the-art maglev — magnetically levitated — trains are scheduled to begin commercial service between Tokyo and Nagoya in central Japan in 2027, before later extending to the western hub of Osaka.
The giant project, estimated to cost ￥9 trillion (US$79.92 billion) in total, has seen various companies competing for contracts ranging from tunneling work to building stations.
Construction firm Kajima Corp’s headquarters and another Tokyo office were raided by investigators from the Tokyo District Prosecutors’ Office and the Fair Trade Commission for suspected anti-trust law violations, said a company spokesman who declined to be named.
“We’d like to decline to comment on further details as the investigation is ongoing. We will continue to fully cooperate with the investigation,” he said.
Shimizu Construction Co, another general contractor, also said it was raided yesterday.
The raids came after Japanese media reported that prosecutors would shortly raid Japan’s big four contractors — Kajima, Shimizu, Taisei Corp and Obayashi Corp — over alleged collusion.
Officials from the four companies, called “super general contractors,” met regularly to rig bids, local media alleged.
Of the last 22 bids related to the maglev project, 15 were won by joint ventures that the four groups had separately formed and distributed almost evenly among them, the reports said.
Taisei and Obayashi were not raided yesterday.
However, prosecutors searched Obayashi earlier this month on suspicion of obstructing other companies’ business.
The company reportedly pressured other contractors to drop their planned bids for a contract to build an emergency exit at Nagoya.
Shares in Kajima, Shimizu and Taisei yesterday dropped more than 2 percent while Obayashi’s share price closed slightly higher.
Maglev trains are to run at 500kph, about twice as fast as the current bullet trains in Japan. A maglev train clocked a new world speed record in a 2015 test run near Mount Fuji, smashing through the 600kph mark.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
Popular vape brands such as Geek Bar might get more expensive in the US — if you can find them at all. Shipments of vapes from China to the US ground to a near halt last month from a year ago, official data showed, hit by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a crackdown on unauthorized e-cigarettes in the world’s biggest market for smoking alternatives. That includes Geek Bar, a brand of flavored vapes that is not authorized to sell in the US, but which had been widely available due to porous import controls. One retailer, who asked not to be named, because
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
STILL LOADED: Last year’s richest person, Quanta Computer Inc chairman Barry Lam, dropped to second place despite an 8 percent increase in his wealth to US$12.6 billion Staff writer, with CNA Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and Richard Tsai (蔡明興), the brothers who run Fubon Group (富邦集團), topped the Forbes list of Taiwan’s 50 richest people this year, released on Wednesday in New York. The magazine said that a stronger New Taiwan dollar pushed the combined wealth of Taiwan’s 50 richest people up 13 percent, from US$174 billion to US$197 billion, with 36 of the people on the list seeing their wealth increase. That came as Taiwan’s economy grew 4.6 percent last year, its fastest pace in three years, driven by the strong performance of the semiconductor industry, the magazine said. The Tsai
RSS