■ SECURITIES
China to encourage bonds
China will encourage publicly traded companies to issue bonds as a way of diversifying their corporate borrowings, the central bank said yesterday. "Our financial system is immature and one of the main reasons is our corporate bond markets are so small," the People's Bank of China said in a statement posted on its Web site. "We need more forms of corporate financing in order to create a healthy market." Most companies in China rely on bank financing, totaling 2.3 trillion yuan (US$310 billion), while listed companies have raised 1 trillion yuan from the stock markets and only 880 billion yuan from corporate bonds, the central bank said.
■ TRADE TALKS
S Korea, EU work for pact
South Korea's trade minister forecast yesterday that Seoul could agree on a free trade pact with the EU by the end of this year despite a dispute over automotive tariff concessions. Speaking ahead of a fourth round of talks scheduled in Seoul on Oct. 15, South Korean Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon said both sides had to compromise. A deal with the EU would be the biggest ever for South Korea, surpassing an agreement signed in June with the US, which awaits ratification by the legislatures of both countries.
■ THEME PARKS
Disney in Malaysian talks
Walt Disney Co is holding talks with Malyasian investment company Khazanah Nasional about building a theme park in Johor State that would face Singapore, a business paper reported yesterday. The Edge business weekly said Walt Disney officials met officials from Khazanah last week to discuss developing a park in the Iskandar Development Region. "They [Walt Disney] met Khazanah managing director Azman Mokhtar and had discussions with other top Khazanah executives," it said. But it said Khazanah was also in negotiations with other theme park players including Warner Brothers.
■ COMMUNICATIONS
Japan seeks new standard
A research group will be established in Japan to develop optical technology that could replace the Internet Protocol as the new international standard in communications, a report said yesterday. The group will be established next month by the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, which is backed by the government, and private companies such as NTT Corp, Fujitsu Ltd, KDDI Corp, Hitachi Ltd, Toshiba Corp and NEC Corp, the Nikkei Shimbun said. By 2015, it will aim to develop and commercialize a network that can transfer data at 10 gigabits per second.
■ IPR
French company fined
An court in eastern China has ordered a French electrical company to pay 330 million yuan (US$44 million) for infringing on the copyright of a Chinese firm, the Beijing News reported yesterday. In a ruling issued on Saturday, the Wenzhou intermediate court in Zhejiang Province ordered Schneider Electric to pay 330 million yuan in compensation to the Chint Group for infringing on the patent for its low-voltage electrical equipment, the newspaper reported. The amount of compensation is believed to be the highest in China in an intellectual property rights case, the paper said. "We absolutely disagree with this decision; it is absolutely unreasonable," said Guy Dufraisse, director of China operations for Schneider Electric.
WAITING GAME: The US has so far only offered a ‘best rate tariff,’ which officials assume is about 15 percent, the same as Japan, a person familiar with the matter said Taiwan and the US have completed “technical consultations” regarding tariffs and a finalized rate is expected to be released soon, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference yesterday, as a 90-day pause on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire today. The two countries have reached a “certain degree of consensus” on issues such as tariffs, nontariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, supply chain resilience and economic security, Lee said. They also discussed opportunities for cooperation, investment and procurement, she said. A joint statement is still being negotiated and would be released once the US government has made
Authorities have detained three former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TMSC, 台積電) employees on suspicion of compromising classified technology used in making 2-nanometer chips, the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. Prosecutors are holding a former TSMC engineer surnamed Chen (陳) and two recently sacked TSMC engineers, including one person surnamed Wu (吳) in detention with restricted communication, following an investigation launched on July 25, a statement said. The announcement came a day after Nikkei Asia reported on the technology theft in an exclusive story, saying TSMC had fired two workers for contravening data rules on advanced chipmaking technology. Two-nanometer wafers are the most
NEW GEAR: On top of the new Tien Kung IV air defense missiles, the military is expected to place orders for a new combat vehicle next year for delivery in 2028 Mass production of Tien Kung IV (Sky Bow IV) missiles is expected to start next year, with plans to order 122 pods, the Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) latest list of regulated military material showed. The document said that the armed forces would obtain 46 pods of the air defense missiles next year and 76 pods the year after that. The Tien Kung IV is designed to intercept cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to an altitude of 70km, compared with the 60km maximum altitude achieved by the Missile Segment Enhancement variant of PAC-3 systems. A defense source said yesterday that the number of
Taiwanese exports to the US are to be subject to a 20 percent tariff starting on Thursday next week, according to an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump yesterday. The 20 percent levy was the same as the tariffs imposed on Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh by Trump. It was higher than the tariffs imposed on Japan, South Korea and the EU (15 percent), as well as those on the Philippines (19 percent). A Taiwan official with knowledge of the matter said it is a "phased" tariff rate, and negotiations would continue. "Once negotiations conclude, Taiwan will obtain a better
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