■ 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."
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
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