■ Auto Industry
Hyundai plans new venture
Hyundai Motor Co, South Korea's largest carmaker, plans to set up an auto-parts venture with Siemens AG, Yonhap News reported, citing a company official it didn't name. The venture will be formed in mid-July, the report said. Hyundai Motor and Siemens will initially produce electronic control systems for cars, the report said. The venture will be expanded to include multimedia components, such as navigation equipment, Yonhap News said.
■ Oil business
Shell wants von Pierer
Siemens AG's former chief executive and current supervisory board head Heinrich von Pierer is a leading candidate to take over as chairman of Royal Dutch/Shell Group, the Sunday Telegraph said, citing no one. Von Pierer, 64, is "rated by many as the most influential European business leader of the past decade" and his appointment would be "welcomed by investors," the Telegraph said. The oil company has hired recruiting company Egon Zehnder to find a new chairman, the newspaper said.
■ Aviation
Dragonair pampers less
Hong Kong airline Dragonair has scaled back its in-flight service after at least 100 flight attendants called in sick in recent days to protest their workload. Cabin crew have been ordered not to serve pre-meal drinks, wet towels and second helpings of coffee or tea on flights that are inadequately staffed until the end of September, the South China Morning Post reported. They also won't be required to offer duty-free shopping, the report said. The flight attendants who called in sick on Friday and Saturday are upset about their low pay and increased working hours, according to the Post.
■ Retail
Daiei to sell properties
Struggling Japanese retailer Daiei will sell over 100 properties in a bid to halve its debt to about ?500 billion (US$4.5 billion) by early next year. Through the sell-off, Daiei expects to secure ?20 billion and hopes to speed up its debt-reduction efforts and improve its financial base, the business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun said yesterday. The total amount of Daiei's interest-bearing debt stood at ?1.03 trillion at the end of February. In December last year, the retailer said it would close 53 money-losing outlets. The retailer is currently undergoing business rehabilitation under the government-backed corporate bailout body, Industrial Revitalization Corp of Japan.
■ Semiconductors
Matsushita cuts back
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, the world's biggest consumer-electronics maker, is offering early retirement to some of its 15,000 semiconductor-division employees to cut costs and raise profitability, a spokesman said. Matsushita, Japan's fifth-biggest chipmaker, will take requests until mid-July for early retirement from employees in Japan with the company for at least 10 years, said Akira Kadota, a spokesman in Tokyo, confirming an earlier report in the Nihon Keizai newspaper. The Osaka-based company expects to eliminate about 1,000 employees, or 6 percent of the chip-business jobs, the Nikkei reported. Kadota said the numbers are "speculative."
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
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