■FINLAND
Nation posts trade surplus
The nation’s trade balance returned to a surplus in February because of an increase in exports to China. The surplus was 41 million euros (US$55 million), compared with a deficit of 105 million euros the month before and a surplus of 460 million euros a year earlier, Helsinki-based Finnish Customs said on its Web site yesterday, citing revised figures. Exports to China increased slightly, the customs office said, helping offset a decline in global trade. Finland’s February exports slid 36 percent to 3.55 billion euros from a year earlier, while imports fell 31 percent to 3.51 billion euros.
■ZAMBIA
Zambia welcomes IMF aid
Finance and National Planning Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane on Sunday welcomed an IMF decision to grant an extra US$256.4 million with an immediate payment of US$160.1 million in financial support to Zambia. The kwacha, the Zambian national currency, has been gaining stability, which could help the government meet its development targets, Musokotwan said. The currency recently fell against the major currencies. The increase brought IMF financial aid to the country to US$329.7 million, the ministry statement said.
■INVESTMENT
KKR to buy AB InBev
US investment bank Kohlberg Kravis Roberts (KKR) is finalizing an agreement to buy Anheuser-Busch InBev NV’s (AB InBev) South Korean beer affiliate for about US$1.8 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported late on Sunday. Citing people familiar with the situation, the newspaper said the possible deal signals the market for leveraged buyouts is reopening in Asia. The US private-equity firm was named preferred bidder a week ago after competing against Asia-focused private-equity bidders MBK Partners LP and Affinity Equity Partners to buy 100 percent of AB InBev’s Oriental Brewery Co, which is the No. 2 brewer in South Korea, the paper said. Over the past week, the two sides have negotiated terms on the sale, which is expected to be publicly announced on Thursday, when AB InBev posts its results for the first quarter, the paper said.
■AVIATION
PRC carrier to sell planes
China Eastern Airlines (中國東航) said yesterday it had agreed to sell two Airbus A340 jets for 590 million yuan (US$86 million) to improve its cash flow, but added it would lease the planes back. The nation’s third largest carrier by fleet size said in an exchange filing that it sold the two planes to China’s Bank of Communications Financial Leasing Co Ltd (交銀金融租賃公司). The airline said it intended to channel the proceeds from the sale of the aircraft into its operations. It will pay about 17 million yuan for each aircraft per quarter to lease them back over the next five years, the carrier said. China Eastern suffered a net loss of 15.3 billion yuan last year owing to falling passenger numbers, rising fuel costs and bad bets on fuel hedging contracts.
■OIL
Prices rise on optimism
Oil prices were higher in Asian trade yesterday as hopes that the worst is over for the global economy got the better of worries about the swine flu outbreak, analysts said. New York’s main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery next month was up US$0.28 to US$53.48 a barrel in the afternoon. Brent North Sea crude for June delivery gained US$0.35 to US$53.20.
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday inaugurated the Danjiang Bridge across the Tamsui River in New Taipei City, saying that the structure would be an architectural icon and traffic artery for Taiwan. Feted as a major engineering achievement, the Danjiang Bridge is 920m long, 211m tall at the top of its pylon, and is the longest single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge in the world, the government’s Web site for the structure said. It was designed by late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. The structure, with a maximum deck of 70m, accommodates road and light rail traffic, and affords a 200m navigation channel for boats,
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest foundry service provider, yesterday said that global semiconductor revenue is projected to hit US$1.5 trillion in 2030, after the figure exceeds US$1 trillion this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) demand boosts consumption of token and compute power. “We are still at the beginning of the AI revolution, but we already see a significant impact across the whole semiconductor ecosystem,” TSMC deputy cochief operating officer Kevin Zhang (張曉強) said at the company’s annual technology symposium in Hsinchu City. “It is fair to say that in the past decade, smartphones and other mobile devices were
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
RSS