■Fiscal policy
Germany against bailout
German Finance Minister Hans Eichel has rejected calls from French counterpart Francis Mer to support a 2.8-billion-euro (US$3.2 billion) bailout of engineering group Alstom, the Financial Times Deutschland reported on Friday, quoting German government officials. Eichel confirmed that he had received a personal telephone call from Mer on Sunday, but he would not elaborate on the content of the conversation, the newspaper said. Berlin argues that German companies, such as Alstom's direct rival Siemens, were also facing difficult market conditions without the prospect of state help. That would made it difficult to justify the French government taking a stake in a large private-sector company, FT Deutschland quoted the German officials as saying.
■ Tourism
Food is HK's No. 1 draw
Forget the spectacular skyline and the magnificence of Victoria Harbor. The reason most Chinese people want to come to Hong Kong is for its food, according to a survey Friday. An Internet survey of 50,000 Chinese people around the world carried out by a Hong Kong-based radio station and newspaper found that food was the number one attraction of the former British colony. Victoria Harbor was ranked the second best attraction while shopping was listed as the third best reason to come to Hong Kong and a visit to The Peak was ranked fourth. The city's architecture was named as the fifth best reason to visit. The survey was carried out between June and last month by government-run radio station RTHK and newspaper Wen Wei Pao to find out what people like most about Hong Kong. The majority of the 15 million visitors a year who come to Hong Kong are Chinese, most of them visiting from China.
■ Fiscal policy
Japan cuts officials' wages
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on yesterday said the government would implement record wage cuts for central government employees to bring their salary levels into line with falling private-sector wages. The National Personnel Authority, which handles personnel and wage matters for state employees, proposed cuts of Japanese Yen 163,000 (US$1,400) a year to the average annual salary of some Japanese Yen 6.15 million. After receiving the proposal, Koizumi said the government would implement the wage cut recommendations. The recommendations "were in line with private sector wage levels. We will cut [wages] as recommended," Koizumi told reporters. The personnel authority has proposed wage reductions for five straight years. "It is all because of deflation," Koizumi said.
■ Macroeconomics
US executives now upbeat
Senior US executives have revised their gloomy outlook for US economic growth for the next 12 months, and a clear majority are now upbeat, a quarterly management survey said Thursday. The survey, conducted during the second-quarter, by PricewaterhouseCoopers found optimism has rebounded, with 63 percent of senior executives describing themselves as upbeat on the economy, up from 34 percent in the prior quarter. "For the first time in four consecutive quarters, more than half of executives have a positive outlook toward business in the upcoming 12 months," said Pricewaterhouse-Coopers executive Frank Brown.
Agencies
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
‘WORLD’S LOSS’: Taiwan’s exclusion robs the world of the benefits it could get from one of the foremost practitioners of disease prevention and public health, Minister Chiu said Taiwan should be allowed to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) as an irreplaceable contributor to global health and disease prevention efforts, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. He made the comment at a news conference in Taipei, hours before a Taiwanese delegation was to depart for Geneva, Switzerland, seeking to meet with foreign representatives for a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the WHA, the WHO’s annual decisionmaking meeting, which would be held from Monday next week to May 27. As of yesterday, Taiwan had yet to receive an invitation. Taiwan has much to offer to the international community’s
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
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