■ LOGISTICS
UPS urged to retain jobs
The Philippine government will ask United Parcel Service (UPS) to retain some operations in the country after the US logistics giant announced it was relocating to southern China, President Gloria Arroyo’s spokeswoman said yesterday. UPS on Wednesday announced the planned transfer of its hub to a more centrally located US$180 million facility to be built at Shenzhen airport. The announcement represents an investment blow to the Philippines, which also faces a possible exit by Intel Corp from its second offshore assembly operations center in Asia. Arroyo spokesman Lorelei Fajardo told reporters the airport authorities at Clark airport north of Manila, where UPS had built its US$300 million intra-Asia hub in 2002, were in talks with the US firm’s representatives to explore alternatives to its planned downsizing.
■INVESTOR SERVICES
Agency to review ratings
Moody’s Investors Service shares fell sharply on Wednesday as the credit ratings agency said it was reviewing whether computer errors wrongly assigned top-quality ratings to debt in Europe that did not warrant high marks. Moody’s said in a statement after the market closed on Wednesday that it had hired a law firm to conduct an outside review of how it rates the debt in question, which was aimed at institutional investors. Moody’s said it rated about US$4 billion of the debt in Europe known as constant-proportion debt obligations, or CPDOs. The disclosure follows a Financial Times report that Moody’s incorrectly gave triple-A ratings to the CPDOs. The report also cited internal documents that it said indicated some senior officials at Moody’s were aware early last year of the error.
■JAPAN
Economy holding up: IMF
The Japanese economy is holding up well in the face of the US economic slowdown, but interest rates still need to be kept low until uncertainty over the outlook clears, the IMF said yesterday. The IMF urged Asia’s largest economy to make efforts to reduce its huge public debts and take measures to address the demands from its aging population. “We see the economy as showing a welcome resilience to the slowdown in the US and global markets so far,” said Daniel Citrin, deputy director of the IMF’s Asia and Pacific Department.
■TRADE
Chinese toy exports slowing
The rapid growth in China’s toy exports slowed dramatically in the first quarter of this year, hurt by higher production costs, a stronger currency and safety concerns, a state news agency said yesterday. Toy exports from January through March grew by 3 percent, down from a 23.6 percent growth rate in the same period last year, Xinhua news agency said. Toy exports for the quarter totaled US$1.5 billion, the agency said, citing China’s customs agency.
■BANKING
UBS sells subprime assets
Swiss bank UBS AG said on Wednesday it sold subprime and other mortgage-based securities with a nominal value of US$22 billion for US$15 billion to a newly created investment fund run by US asset manager BlackRock Inc. The sale is part of an attempt by Switzerland’s largest bank to offload risky positions that contributed to its massive writedown of US$37.4 billion over the past nine months. The securities had a nominal value of about US$22 billion, but have been listed with a book value of US$15 billion since March, UBS said.
NATIONAL SECURITY: The Chinese influencer shared multiple videos on social media in which she claimed Taiwan is a part of China and supported its annexation Freedom of speech does not allow comments by Chinese residents in Taiwan that compromise national security or social stability, the nation’s top officials said yesterday, after the National Immigration Agency (NIA) revoked the residency permit of a Chinese influencer who published videos advocating China annexing Taiwan by force. Taiwan welcomes all foreigners to settle here and make families so long as they “love the land and people of Taiwan,” Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) told lawmakers during a plenary session at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei. The public power of the government must be asserted when necessary and the Ministry of
Taiwan’s Lee Chia-hao (李佳豪) on Sunday won a silver medal at the All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, England, a career best. Lee, 25, took silver in the final of the men’s singles against world No. 1 Shi Yuqi (石宇奇) of China, who won 21-17, 21-19 in a tough match that lasted 51 minutes. After the match, the Taiwanese player, who ranks No. 22 in the world, said it felt unreal to be challenging an opponent of Shi’s caliber. “I had to be in peak form, and constantly switch my rhythm and tactics in order to score points effectively,” he said. Lee got
EMBRACING TAIWAN: US lawmakers have introduced an act aiming to replace the use of ‘Chinese Taipei’ with ‘Taiwan’ across all Washington’s federal agencies A group of US House of Representatives lawmakers has introduced legislation to replace the term “Chinese Taipei” with “Taiwan” across all federal agencies. US Representative Byron Donalds announced the introduction of the “America supports Taiwan act,” which would mandate federal agencies adopt “Taiwan” in place of “Chinese Taipei,” a news release on his page on the US House of Representatives’ Web site said. US representatives Mike Collins, Barry Moore and Tom Tiffany are cosponsors of the legislation, US political newspaper The Hill reported yesterday. “The legislation is a push to normalize the position of Taiwan as an autonomous country, although the official US
CHANGE OF TONE: G7 foreign ministers dropped past reassurances that there is no change in the position of the G7 members on Taiwan, including ‘one China’ policies G7 foreign ministers on Friday took a tough stance on China, stepping up their language on Taiwan and omitting some conciliatory references from past statements, including to “one China” policies. A statement by ministers meeting in Canada mirrored last month’s Japan-US statement in condemning “coercion” toward Taiwan. Compared with a G7 foreign ministers’ statement in November last year, the statement added members’ concerns over China’s nuclear buildup, although it omitted references to their concerns about Beijing’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. Also missing were references stressing the desire for “constructive and stable relations with China” and
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