■AVIATION
Qantas to slash senior jobs
Australian airline Qantas is planning to slash 100 senior executive jobs in response to the slump in global air travel, a report said yesterday. The move would also allow recently appointed chief executive Alan Joyce to stamp his authority on the country’s largest airline, the Australian Financial Review reported, citing unnamed senior sources at Qantas. It said the job losses, to be announced in coming weeks, came on top of the 1,500 positions Qantas announced it would scrap last July. The airline refused to comment on the report. A number of key executives have already left the company, including the head of engineering David Cox and chief financial officer Peter Gregg.
■GERMANY
Economy to contract 7%
Commerzbank AG said the German economy would contract as much as 7 percent this year, cutting its forecast after factory orders collapsed. “The recent collapse of order intake compels us to make a massive downward revision to our economic outlook,” Joerg Kraemer, chief economist at Commerzbank in Frankfurt, said in a note to clients yesterday. “We now expect the German economy to contract this year not only by 3 percent to 4 percent, but by 6 percent to 7 percent. And we have sharply lowered our forecasts for the euro-zone and the US.”
■OIL
Oil prices above US$52
Oil prices rose above US$52 a barrel yesterday in Asia, boosted by stronger Asian stock markets amid plans by the US government to buy bad assets from banks to contain the financial crisis. Benchmark crude for May delivery rose US$0.45 to US$52.52 a barrel by midday in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract edged up US$0.03 on Friday to settle at US$52.07, the first time crude ended the week above US$50 since last year. Dealers said the rally, which was given an extra boost by the US Federal Reserve’s decision to buy US$1.25 trillion of government bonds and mortgage-backed securities, continued yesterday as Asian equity markets rose in anticipation of more good news.
■FOREX
China favors US bonds
US Treasury bonds will remain central to China’s plans for investing its massive foreign exchange holdings, a deputy governor of the Chinese central bank said yesterday. “Investing in US Treasury bonds is an important element in China’s investment strategy and we will continue this practice,” Hu Xiaolian (胡曉煉) told reporters. China has been the top holder of US Treasury bonds since September, when it overtook Japan for the first time, US data showed. As of late January, it had accumulated a total of US$739.6 billion in US Treasury bonds.
■AUCTIONS
Antique toys sold off
KB Toys Inc co-founder Donald Kaufman’s decision to go ahead with auctioning off his antique toys in a recession turned out to be a good one. The first 1,500 lots of his 7,000-piece collection sold for a little more than the US$4 million high estimate in a three-day sale from last Thursday until last Saturday at Bertoia Auctions in Vineland, New Jersey. “Everyone kept saying, ‘Boy, the recession isn’t going on in this room,’” auction-house owner Jeanne Bertoia, 54, said in a telephone interview. The auction set a record for the 20-year-old company on a single sale. Kaufman, 78, sold his stake in KB Toys in 1981. He decided to part with his antiques two years ago to divest his assets and invest the proceeds.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
Japan and the Philippines yesterday signed a defense pact that would allow the tax-free provision of ammunition, fuel, food and other necessities when their forces stage joint training to boost deterrence against China’s growing aggression in the region and to bolster their preparation for natural disasters. Japan has faced increasing political, trade and security tensions with China, which was angered by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remark that a Chinese attack on Taiwan would be a survival-threatening situation for Japan, triggering a military response. Japan and the Philippines have also had separate territorial conflicts with Beijing in the East and South China
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