■ 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.
BACK IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD: The planned transit by the ‘Baden-Wuerttemberg’ and the ‘Frankfurt am Main’ would be the German Navy’s first passage since 2002 Two German warships are set to pass through the Taiwan Strait in the middle of this month, becoming the first German naval vessels to do so in 22 years, Der Spiegel reported on Saturday. Reuters last month reported that the warships, the frigate Baden-Wuerttemberg and the replenishment ship Frankfurt am Main, were awaiting orders from Berlin to sail the Strait, prompting a rebuke to Germany from Beijing. Der Spiegel cited unspecified sources as saying Beijing would not be formally notified of the German ships’ passage to emphasize that Berlin views the trip as normal. The German Federal Ministry of Defense declined to comment. While
‘UPHOLDING PEACE’: Taiwan’s foreign minister thanked the US Congress for using a ‘creative and effective way’ to deter Chinese military aggression toward the nation The US House of Representatives on Monday passed the Taiwan Conflict Deterrence Act, aimed at deterring Chinese aggression toward Taiwan by threatening to publish information about Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials’ “illicit” financial assets if Beijing were to attack. The act would also “restrict financial services for certain immediate family of such officials,” the text of the legislation says. The bill was introduced in January last year by US representatives French Hill and Brad Sherman. After remarks from several members, it passed unanimously. “If China chooses to attack the free people of Taiwan, [the bill] requires the Treasury secretary to publish the illicit
A senior US military official yesterday warned his Chinese counterpart against Beijing’s “dangerous” moves in the South China Sea during the first talks of their kind between the commanders. Washington and Beijing remain at odds on issues from trade to the status of Taiwan and China’s increasingly assertive approach in disputed maritime regions, but they have sought to re-establish regular military-to-military talks in a bid to prevent flashpoint disputes from spinning out of control. Samuel Paparo, commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, and Wu Yanan (吳亞男), head of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Southern Theater Command, talked via videoconference. Paparo “underscored the importance
The US House of Representatives yesterday unanimously passed the Taiwan Conflict Deterrence Act, which aims to disincentivize Chinese aggression toward Taiwan by cutting Chinese leaders and their family members off from the US financial system if Beijing acts against Taiwan. The bipartisan bill, which would also publish the assets of top Chinese leaders, was cosponsored by Republican US Representative French Hill, Democratic US Representative Brad Sherman and seven others. If the US president determines that a threat against Taiwan exists, the bill would require the US Department of the Treasury to report to Congress on funds held by certain members of the
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