■ Electronics
Sharp profits take tumble
Profit at Sharp Corp fell 6.9 percent in the six months to Sept. 30 because of the costs of opening new TV plants and soaring prices of raw materials for solar cells, Japan's leading manufacturer of liquid crystal display TVs said yesterday. The Osaka-based company said group net profit fell to ¥43.3 billion (US$263 million) for the period from April to last month, down from ¥46.5 billion a year ago. First half sales totaled ¥1.641 trillion (US$14.4 billion), up 12 percent from the ¥1.466 trillion for the same period a year earlier, the company said in a statement.
■ automobiles
Steering wheel unveiled
Japanese electronics giant Hitachi has developed a steering wheel that enables the driver to use his or her fingers as switches for the engine, car stereo and navigation system. The steering wheel is equipped with a tiny device that reads the driver's finger veins. "If I place my index finger on this reader, it recognizes it's me. If I put the finger again, it starts the engine," Masahide Hayashi of Hitachi's sensor design department explained at the Tokyo Motor Show in Chiba, near the capital. "When the middle finger is on the device, it sends a command to play music I registered in accordance to my taste. The ring finger can start the navigation system," he said.
■ Telecoms
Ericsson earnings drop
Ericsson, the world's leading mobile networks maker, presented sharply lower third quarter earnings yesterday in line with last week's profit warning that shocked the market. Ericsson also announced that its chief financial officer, Karl-Henrik Sundstroem, was leaving the company with immediate effect, amid fierce criticism in the media that management was not on top of the situation. The Swedish group reported a net profit of 4 billion kronor (US$620 million) and an operating profit of 5.6 billion kronor, both down by 36 percent from a year ago. Ericsson, like its competitors such as Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens Networks, are seeing growing competition from Asia, such as China's Huawei (華為), which is pressing margins.
■ Banking
Shinsei slashes forecasts
Japan's Shinsei Bank Ltd yesterday slashed its earnings forecasts for the year because of exposure to the troubled US subprime housing mortgage sector. It is the latest Japanese bank to report effects from the subprime crisis, which has rattled global markets and raised fears of a liquidity squeeze. Shinsei now expects to post net profit of ¥62 billion (US$542 million) in the year to March 31, down by ¥10 billion or nearly 14 percent from the previous projection, a statement said. Shinsei said it was taking the action due to revisions by an affiliate and "prudent provisioning related to our exposure in the US residential mortgage market."
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
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
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
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
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