■UTILITIES
E.ON, GDF Suez fined by EU
EU antitrust regulators imposed a combined fine of more than 1.1 billion euros (US$1.54 billion) on E.ON and GDF Suez yesterday for secretly carving up gas markets. The European Commission fined each company 553 million euros for agreeing in 1975 not to compete with one another in their respective national gas markets when they jointly built a pipeline to import Russian gas. “This decision sends a strong signal to energy incumbents that the Commission will not tolerate any form of anticompetitive behavior,” EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said.
■UNITED KINGDOM
Confidence on the rise
Consumer confidence rose last month as more people said they expected better times by the end of the year, a finance company said yesterday, but a drop in a closely watched house price survey tempered optimism about a recovery. The Nationwide Building Society’s Consumer Confidence Index, based on opinion polling, rose to 58 last month, up from 54 in May, its highest level since October. A third of the sample believed the economy would be better in six months, the highest figure in a year, though 42 percent expect no difference and 23 percent thought it would be worse.
■JAPAN
Bankruptcies top 8,000
Corporate bankruptcies topped 8,000 in the six months to last month, the highest first-half level in six years, as the global economic downturn deepened, a survey showed yesterday. The number of companies that failed with debts of ¥10 million (US$105,000) or more totaled 8,169 in the January to last month period, up 8.2 percent from a year earlier, Tokyo Shoko Research reported. Their combined debts jumped 47.3 percent from a year earlier to ¥4.69 trillion. Last month alone, 1,422 firms went under, up 18.2 percent from May and the highest in a month since June 2002, the research firm said.
■COMMODITIES
Mitsui wins lithium contract
Japan’s Mitsui & Co Ltd said yesterday it had won exclusive rights from a Canadian firm to sell lithium in Asia to meet rising demand for lithium-ion batteries for eco-friendly products such as hybrid vehicles. Mitsui said it will import 2,000 tonnes of lithium per year from Canada Lithium Corp. The quantity of Mitsui’s imports would be equal to around 80 percent of Japan’s annual demand for lithium. Mitsui said it would also sell lithium in China, Japan and South Korea.
■FINANCE
Two plead guilty to charges
A former investment banker at brokerage CLSA and a former fund manager have pleaded guilty to charges of insider dealing, Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) said late on Tuesday. Allen Lam (林嘉輝), a former investment banking director at Hong Kong-based CLSA, and Ryan Fong (方仁宏), a former hedge fund manager at HSZ Ltd, pleaded guilty at the District Court to two charges involving shares in Media Partners International Holdings, the SFC said.
■PETROCHEMICALS
S Korean firms win orders
Three South Korean construction firms said yesterday they had won orders totaling US$2.8 billion to build part of a refinery and petrochemical plant in eastern Saudi Arabia. Daelim Industrial, SK Engineering and Construction and Samsung Engineering said they had signed the deal for the Jubail project with Saudi Aramco Total Refining and Petrochemical.
RISK REMAINS: An official said that with the US presidential elections so close, it is unclear if China would hold war games or keep its reaction to angry words The Ministry of National Defense said it was “on alert” as it detected a Chinese aircraft carrier group to Taiwan’s south yesterday amid concerns in Taiwan about the possibility of a new round of Chinese war games. The ministry said in a statement that a Chinese navy group led by the carrier Liaoning had entered waters near the Bashi Channel, which connects the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean and separates Taiwan from the Philippines. It said the carrier group was expected to enter the Western Pacific. The military is keeping a close watch on developments and “exercising an
FIVE-YEAR WINDOW? A defense institute CEO said a timeline for a potential Chinese invasion was based on expected ‘tough measures’ when Xi Jinping seeks a new term Most Taiwanese are willing to defend the nation against a Chinese attack, but the majority believe Beijing is unlikely to invade within the next five years, a poll showed yesterday. The poll carried out last month was commissioned by the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a Taipei-based think tank, and released ahead of Double Ten National Day today, when President William Lai (賴清德) is to deliver a speech. China maintains a near-daily military presence around Taiwan and has held three rounds of war games in the past two years. CIA Director William Burns last year said that Chinese President Xi Jinping
RESILIENCE: Once the system is operational, there would be no need to worry about the risks posed by disasters or other emergencies on communication systems, an official said Taiwan would have 24-hour access to low Earth orbit satellites by the end of this month through service provided by Eutelsat OneWeb as part of the nation’s effort to enhance signal resilience, a Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) official said yesterday. Earlier this year the Ministry of Digital Affairs, which partnered with Chunghwa Telecom on a two-year project to boost signal resilience throughout the nation, said it reached a milestone when it made contact with OneWeb’s satellites half of the time. It expects to have the capability to maintain constant contact with the satellites and have nationwide coverage by the end
REACTION TO LAI: A former US official said William Lai took a step toward stability with his National Day speech and the question was how Beijing would respond US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday warned China against taking any “provocative” action on Taiwan after Beijing’s reaction to President William Lai’s (賴清德) speech on Double Ten National Day on Thursday. Blinken, speaking in Laos after an ASEAN East Asia Summit, called the speech by Lai, in which he vowed to “resist annexation,” a “regular exercise.” “China should not use it in any fashion as a pretext for provocative actions,” Blinken told reporters. “On the contrary, we want to reinforce — and many other countries want to reinforce — the imperative of preserving the status quo, and neither party taking any
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