Seven & i Holdings Co’s China-based convenience store business was fined for identifying Taiwan as an independent country on its Web site, the latest crackdown by China against companies over its stance on disputed territories.
Seven & i operates the 7-Eleven chain of convenience stores.
Fines of about 150,000 yuan (US$23,530) were imposed by the Beijing local authority against Seven & i, a spokesman for the Japanese retailer said, confirming an earlier report in the Nikkei newspaper.
Photo: Bloomberg
Enterprises operating in China — from Gap Inc and Daimler AG, to airlines including United Continental Holdings Inc and ANA Holdings Inc — have apologized or changed their Web sites after depicting Taiwan as a separate state. The companies usually comply, accepting it as part of the cost of doing business in China.
Seven & i “is taking the issue seriously and making sure to prevent a recurrence,” the company’s spokesman said.
Beijing’s municipal authorities last month issued the fine and a warning, a government-linked credit information Web site showed. Seven & i also failed to use Chinese names for some South China Sea islands as well as for the disputed Diaoyu Islands (釣魚島), known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan, and which are also claimed by Taiwan.
The map contained alleged errors in labeling some borders along the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Tibet Autonomous Region, the online report said.
While Hong Kong and Macau are special administrative regions with greater autonomy, Beijing also objects to references indicating that they are independent.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS