■ AVIATION
Airport operators swap shares
The state-owned company that runs Paris’ airports and Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport operator will take stakes in each other’s companies in a deal meant to make them more competitive, the French Finance Ministry said yesterday. In a statement, the ministry said the boards of both companies had approved an “industrial partnership project.” The French government will cede 8 percent of its majority stake in Aeroports de Paris (AdP) to Schiphol Group for 67 euros (US$89.94) per share, or about 530 million euros, the statement said. AdP will then obtain 8 percent of Schiphol’s capital for about 370 million euros. The French government will retain 60 percent of AdP’s capital after the deal and intends to remain the chief stakeholder, the ministry said.
■ AUTOMOBILES
Nissan cuts production
Nissan Motor Co said yesterday it would cut Japanese production of large and luxury cars meant for export to the US as demand slows in the world’s largest economy. Nissan will reduce production of its Infinity brand luxury cars and its Murano and Rogue sports utility vehicles by a total of 65,000 units between next month and March. The cuts would reduce Nissan’s total output in Japan by 4.7 percent from the 1.388 million vehicles it initially planned to produce in the year through March. Nissan is also considering cutting jobs for some of its 2,000 temporary workers at the plants, the company said.
■ SAFETY
Chinese cribs recalled
China, embroiled in a tainted milk scandal that has made thousand of babies sick, said it took product safety very seriously, especially where children were concerned, after a new report about faulty Chinese-made cribs. New York-based Delta Enterprises recalled on Monday almost 1.6 million cribs made in China, Indonesia and Taiwan after it said two babies died. It did not give details. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang (秦剛) said he had no information on the cribs but urged consumers and producers to report faulty products. The crib recall is one of the largest in US history and follows another recall of 2,000 cribs, also made in China, issued by the Consumer Product Safety Commission on Thursday.
■ RATINGS
South Korea retains A+
Fitch Ratings affirmed South Korea’s credit rating, saying the US$130 billion financial-rescue package announced this week was “sufficiently focused and affordable.” Fitch kept its A+ rating, the fifth-highest of 10 investment grades, on South Korea’s foreign currency debt. The government on Sunday pledged to guarantee US$100 billion in banks’ foreign-currency debt and said it would provide US$30 billion in US dollars to banks. The measures “are sufficiently focused and affordable to be consistent with [South] Korea’s current sovereign ratings,” Fitch said in a statement yesterday.
■ ELECTRONICS
CE sales growth halves
Consumer electronics sales are expected to grow 3.5 percent in the fourth quarter, half the growth rate for the holiday season last year, a trade industry group said on Monday. The Consumer Electonics Association (CEA) said that while consumers were expecting to spend nearly US$200 less this holiday season than last year, they plan to spend more on consumer electronics. The CEA study found that 28 percent of the total holiday budget was being allocated for consumer electronics purchases, an increase of 6 percent from last year.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
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