■ Currency
Speculation discouraged
Japanese Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki warned against sudden moves in the currency market yesterday after the yen spiked to a three-month high against the US dollar. In reaction to comments over the weekend by Group of Seven finance officials, the US dollar has plunged to the ¥114 level since Friday, when it stood in the ¥117 range. "Sudden speculative moves are undesirable," Tanigaki said, describing the current market condition as rough. Expectations that China's yuan will gain has prompted traders to buy the yen due to Japan's regional proximity to China. "It's necessary to watch the currency markets carefully," Tanigaki said, adding that the G-7 group believes that currency rate fluctuations need to accurately reflect market "fundamentals."
■ Mobile phones
Sharp now Japan's No.1
Sharp Corp overtook NEC Corp and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co as Japan's biggest mobile phone maker by shipments for the first time, MM Research Institute said in a report released on Monday. Shipments by Sharp gained 20 percent to 7.6 million units in the year ended March 31, accounting for 16.3 percent of the total 46.3 million shipments, the researcher said. Second-ranked Matsushita's shipments fell 1.8 percent to 7.5 million units, a 16.1 percent share. NEC, which had been the biggest phone maker in Japan for the past four years, slid to third place with a 15.8 percent share. Its shipments fell 10.6 percent to 7.3 million units. Total shipments gained 5.2 percent in the year ended March 31 from the previous year as carriers introduced new models that can download music, browse the Web more widely and perform other functions, the researcher said.
■ Investment
S$620 million in contracts
The Singapore government plans to award S$620 million (US$390 million) in information technology contracts in the year ending March 2007, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore said today in a press release. The amount is lower than the S$700 million the government was projecting to spend last year. The government eventually awarded S$1 billion in contracts for the year ended March 2006. "Technology, capital, knowledge and talent are crucial factors," Chan Yeng-kit, chief executive officer of Infocomm Development Authority, the city-state's phone and information technology regulator, said in the statement. "We will continue to use infocomm to propel Singapore forward and establish Singapore to become a leading city."
■ Piracy
US may take China to WTO
The US has not ruled out taking Beijing to the WTO over rampant counterfeiting in China, Washington's point man on piracy said yesterday. Chris Israel, US Coordinator for International Intellectual Property Enforcement, said recent steps by the Chinese leadership to tackle piracy had given him some cause for optimism but the situation was still far from ideal. "We remain consistent and clear in our policies that we consider all trade tools open and available," Israel told reporters in Beijing when asked if the US may still take legal action against China at the WTO. "We view the commitment from Chinese leaders as meaningful and significant, and the execution of those commitments and meaningful results is really what we are focused on right now," added Israel, who was on his fourth trip to China.
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
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
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
RSS