■ CELLPHONES
Nokia inks China contract
Nokia Oyj announced a deal yesterday to sell US$2 billion in handsets to China Postel this year, in the company's largest market. The world's No. 1 mobile phone maker said the deal includes the development of technological infrastructure and marketing with China Postel, with which it has worked since 1998. China Postel, a subsidiary of China P&T Appliances, has a market share of 30 percent in that country. Last year, Nokia sold more than 70 million mobile devices in China, an increase of 39 percent on 2006. Nokia, based in Espoo, Finland, has sales in 130 countries. It employs some 130,000 people worldwide.
■ FINANCE
China opens equity markets
Foreign financial institutions will again be allowed to invest in China's equity markets after the government ended a year-long suspension aimed at cooling the market, state media reported yesterday. China's regulators have given the green light to an unnamed sovereign wealth fund to invest under China's especially designated foreign investor plan, the official Shanghai Securities News said. "To encourage qualified overseas funds to invest in China's capital market for the long term, a foreign government fund has recently been granted the QFII qualification," said Hu Xiaolian (胡曉煉), China's foreign exchange chief.
■ CELLPHONES
Motorola replaces officer
Motorola Inc, seeking to regain sales lost to rivals, announced the departure of chief marketing officer Casey Keller, less than 18 months after he took the job. Keller left on Feb. 29, spokeswoman Jennifer Erickson said in an e-mail. Jeremy Dale and Eduardo Conrado will take over the job. Dale will manage handset marketing, while Conrado will focus on business customers. Chief executive officer Greg Brown has reshuffled the management team after Motorola's sales slid for four straight quarters and customers defected to Apple Inc and Nokia Oyj. Last month, Brown took direct charge of the phone division. He also named a new chief financial officer.
■ TELECOMS
Siemens to sell unit
German industrial group Siemens is in talks with several parties interested in buying its telecoms systems unit SEN, which faces a major restructuring, its chief executive said yesterday. "We want to sell SEN and are holding very advanced discussions with interested" parties, Peter Loescher said in an interview with Die Welt newspaper. Problems with SEN, Loescher said, "have been on the agenda at Siemens since mid-2006. It is time to clarify things, especially for the staff." SEN has lost more than US$1.5 billion in two years.
■ PATENTS
CeBIT stands raided
Scores of investigators raided 51 exhibitor stands at the CeBIT fair in Hannover, Germany, this week, looking for goods suspected of infringing patents, police said on Thursday. They carried off six cartons of documents and electronic goods including cellphones, navigation devices, digital picture frames and flat-screen monitors. Police said the reason for the extent of the raids was the high number of complaints from patent holders in the run up to the trade fair. Of the 51 companies raided, 24 were Chinese. Another 12 were Taiwanese companies and nine were German.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
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