■ Electronics
BenQ may face huge claims
BenQ Corp (明基) may face a combined 1.2 billion euros (US$1.6 billion) in claims from creditors and 504 million euros from the insolvency administrator Martin Prager, the Central News Agency reported. The report, citing Prager, said that around 4,350 creditors of bankrupt cellphone unit BenQ Mobile & Co filed the claims. Among them are 3,500 former BenQ Mobile employees. The report said BenQ Mobile's total assets are worth 300 million euros, which is far below the creditors' demand. BenQ Mobile applied for insolvency protection to a Munich court last September.
■ Electronics
Mexico factory closes
Japanese electronics maker Hitachi Ltd said yesterday it will close a factory in Mexico and shed about 4,400 jobs as part of a global overhaul of its slumping hard disk drive business. The plant in Guadalajara will be shuttered by the middle of next year and its production of HDD components shifted to an existing plant in Laguna, Philippines, the company said in a release. The change will help Hitachi save nearly US$300 million over the next five years by bringing component manufacturing closer to the company's final assembly plants in Thailand and China, Tokyo-based Hitachi said.
■ Environment
IBM pledges gas cut
IBM Corp is pledging that by 2012, it will have reduced its greenhouse gas footprint by 7 percent since 2005, primarily through energy conservation. The technology company made the vow yesterday as part of the US Environmental Protection Agency's voluntary "Climate Leaders" program, in which more than 100 firms have committed to reducing their output of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. IBM's first such pledge was a 4 percent decrease from 2002 to 2005; the company says it achieved a 6.2 percent reduction. IBM said it planned to achieve further reductions with improved energy efficiency in the offices used by its 356,000 employees worldwide.
■ Taxes
Malaysia scraps tax
Malaysia will scrap capital gains tax on property deals from April 1, the prime minister said yesterday as he announced a slew of pro-investment programs and incentives in a bid to boost the economy. Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said he hoped the decision would "inject more excitement and dynamism in both the property and financial sectors." He said the government would continue to reduce stakes in government-linked firms in which it has a high level of ownership to increase equity market liquidity.
■ Aviation
Iberia mulls merger
Spain's national carrier Iberia signaled on Wednesday it was ready to look at a merger, with consolidation of the industry expected to gather pace on prospects of an EU-US deal to open up transatlantic air travel. Although the Spanish carrier said no such alliance was under discussion it added that it would consider all options. The carrier has charged chairman Fernando Conte with making relevant information available to potential investors. A tie-up between Lufthansa and Iberia would produce an airline carrying 100 million passengers per year, compared with Air France-KLM's 70 million per year.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,