■ China
Foreign trade hits record
China's foreign trade reached a new monthly record-high last month with total trade up 32.8 percent year-on-year to US$74.6 billion, the customs bureau reported yesterday. In the first seven months of the year, China's exports rose 33 percent year-on-year to US$228 billion, while im-ports were up nearly 43 percent to US$222 billion, the People's Daily said citing the General Admin-istration of Customs. It said general exports rose 35 percent from a year earlier to US$97.3 billion in the first seven months, while general imports were up 53 percent at US$103.95 billion. Elec-tronic exports rose 41 percent year-on-year to US$115.44 billion in the first seven months, it said.
■ Japan
Driver fatigue targeted
Japan's transport ministry is considering introducing a system to analyze voice recordings of train drivers and aircraft pilots for a few seconds to assess their level of fatigue and prevent accidents, said an official at the Engineering and Safety Department of the Land, Infrastructure and Trans-portation Ministry yester-day. "Since it uses voice recording, the system could be applied to people at the controls of any means of transport," the official said. The system can tell how tired or stressed the speaker is by detecting irregularities in frequency modulation and analysing other factors, he said. The ministry is considering introducing the system under a four-year project possibly starting next year, he said. In February, Japanese were shocked to discover the driver of a bullet train had fallen asleep on the job while travelling at 270kph with 800 passengers on board.
■ Cameras
Nikon posts profit
Nikon Corp of Japan said yesterday it managed to post a net profit in the three months to June thanks to its mainstay camera business as strong demand for digital cameras offset losses at its precision devices division. Nikon's net profit came to ¥69 million (US$579,800) in the June quarter, with recurring profit standing at ¥553 million on sales of ¥112.89 billion. This is the first time Nikon has reported quarterly earnings. The company did not change forecasts for the full year to next March -- a net profit of ¥5 billion, recurring profit of ¥9 billion on sales of ¥570 billion.
■ Software
Microsoft hires China chief
Microsoft Corp hired Moto-rola (China) Electronics Ltd chairman Timothy Chen to head up its China opera-tions, the Beijing Youth Daily said, without saying where it got the informa-tion. Microsoft will make an announcement on the hiring some time this week, the article said.
■ Automobiles
Hyundai's Q2 profit surges
Hyundai Motor Co had an 86 percent increase in second-quarter profit as it sold more Grandeur XG sedans, Santa Fe sport-utilities and other pricier vehicles over-seas. Net income jumped to 571 billion won (US$484 million) in the three months ended June 30, from 307 billion won in the same period last year. Hyundai and other South Korean carmakers focused on exports this year after domestic demand fell when the government tightened requirements on individual borrowing. Hyundai's profit may fall in the third quarter after the company agreed to increase employees' salaries following a strike, an investor said.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
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