■ Semiconductors
Chip sales up 7 percent
Worldwide semiconductor sales rose 7 percent in January from a year before as the year got off to a "good start," a trade group said. Global sales climbed to US$19.66 billion in January from US$18.38 billion in January last year, the Semiconductor Industry Association said today in an e-mailed statement. A 1.5 percent decline from December to January compared with a historical average of 2.2 percent following the "seasonally strong" fourth quarter, it said.
■ Finance
China's reserves criticized
China foreign exchange reserves are too large and investing them in US Treasuries is providing Washington with cheap financing at the expense of Chinese returns, state press reported yesterday. "China's foreign exchange reserve hit US$818.9 billion at the end of last year but what China really needs should be no more than US$250 billion," economist Xiao Zhuoji told the Shanghai Securities Times. "The current [holdings are] way above actual needs," he said. Chinese reserves should be cut by more than two-thirds from current levels, Xiao said.
■ Television
TiVo to help with screening
US digital television recording pioneer TiVo announced on Thursday that it had teamed with family-values groups to create a tool to shield children's eyes from adult programming. TiVo allied with Common Sense Media and the Parents Television Council to create menus of television shows acceptable for children in a service dubbed "KidZone," the Alviso, California, company said in a statement. While television-top TiVo boxes would allow children to record and see only KidZone programming, adults in the homes would be able to access any shows available, according to the company.
■ Semiconductors
HP boosts Itanium spending
Hewlett-Packard Co extended its spending on Intel Corp Itanium computer chips by US$3 billion, giving a boost to a processor line that hasn't met Intel's expectations. The new orders through 2010 raises the total investment in Intel's chip to US$6 billion from the US$3 billion the company planned to spend through next year, said Rich Marcello, a vice president for Palo Alto, California-based HP. The commitment by HP, the world's No. 2 server maker, is an encouraging sign for Itanium, which hasn't lived up to Intel's expectation that it would replace its mainstay Pentium chip. HP had a 94 percent jump in sales of Itanium-based Integrity servers last quarter, chief executive officer Mark Hurd said on Thursday.
■ Automobiles
Ford sees big charges
Ford Motor Co expects to post US$1 billion in restructuring charges this year, according to a new filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The struggling automaker also said it expects its core automotive business to lose money this year after having posted a US$1 billion pre-tax loss last year. The Detroit-based company expects its sweeping reorganization plan, which calls for eliminating 30,000 jobs and closing 14 facilities by 2012, will result in a US$250 million charge for job reductions and a US$250 million charge for fixed-asset write-offs. It also expects to take a US$500 million charge for job cuts in Europe and at facilities it has acquired from bankrupt parts supplier Visteon Corp.
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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