■MANUFACTURING
European beats estimates
Europe’s manufacturing industry expanded at a faster pace than initially estimated last month as reviving global demand prompted companies to step up output. A manufacturing index based on a survey of euro-area purchasing managers rose to 56.6 from 54.2 in February, London-based Markit Economics said yesterday. That’s above an initial estimate of 56.3 and the fastest pace since November 2006. A reading above 50 indicates expansion. An index of UK manufacturing rose to a 15-year high, a separate report showed.
■AVIATION
Pentagon extends deadline
The deadline for bids on a US$35 billion contract for refueling jets will be extended by 60 days so the European maker of Airbus can compete, the Pentagon said on Wednesday. Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said the military still planned to award the contract this fall. The decision is aimed at encouraging competition in a program that critics say has been poorly managed and unfairly favors the Boeing Co. Northrop Grumman Corp, which had been partnered with the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co, said last month that it would not bid because it didn’t think it could win.
■SMARTPHONES
RIM posts Q4 earnings rise
BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd (RIM) on Wednesday said earnings for its fiscal fourth quarter ended Feb. 27 were US$710 million, or US$1.27 per share. That was up 37 percent from a year earlier and was nearly in line with analysts’ predictions of US$1.28 per share. Yet its revenue of US$4.08 billion, while rising 18 percent over the same period a year earlier, was short of the US$4.31 billion expected by analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters.
■MINING
Vale Amazon plant approved
Brazilian mining giant Vale on Wednesday got the government’s green light to build a US$3 billion steel plant in northern Para state, in the Amazon jungle, company president Roger Agnelli said. “Our role is promote the growth of steel production in Brazil and to do that we’re looking for the best technologies and processing methods,” Agnelli said in a statement. The new plant will have an annual output of 2 million tonnes, Vale said.
■AUTOMAKERS
Toyota’s Japan sales surge
Toyota sales are booming in Japan, up a hefty 50 percent last month, shrugging off any fallout from massive global recalls. Toyota Motor Corp sales in Japan totaled 204,514 vehicles, up from 135,700 the same month last year, for the eighth straight month of on-year rise, the Japan Automobile Dealers Association said yesterday. Japan’s auto sales have been recovering, with sales jumping 10 percent in the year ending last month from the same period a year earlier to 3.2 million vehicles, the group said. It said that was the first year-on-year increase in seven years.
■REAL ESTATE
Singapore prices keep rising
Singaporean real-estate prices rose for a third consecutive quarter in the January-March period despite government efforts to cool the hot property market. Private residential property prices rose 5.1 percent in the first quarter after jumping 7.4 percent in the fourth and 15.8 percent in the third, the Urban Redevelopment Authority said yesterday. Prices have bounced back strongly after diving 25 percent in the 12 months to the middle of last year as the city-state’s economy rebounds from last year’s recession.
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
‘ARMED GROUP’: Two defendants used Chinese funds to form the ‘Republic of China Taiwan Military Government,’ posing a threat to national security, prosecutors said A retired lieutenant general has been charged after using funds from China to recruit military personnel for an “armed” group that would assist invading Chinese forces, prosecutors said yesterday. The retired officer, Kao An-kuo (高安國), was among six people indicted for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法), the High Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement. The group visited China multiple times, separately and together, from 2018 to last year, where they met Chinese military intelligence personnel for instructions and funding “to initiate and develop organizations for China,” prosecutors said. Their actions posed a “serious threat” to “national security and social stability,” the statement
NATURAL INTERRUPTION: As cables deteriorate, core wires snap in progression along the cable, which does not happen if they are hit by an anchor, an official said Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) immediately switched to a microwave backup system to maintain communications between Taiwan proper and Lienchiang County (Matsu) after two undersea cables malfunctioned due to natural deterioration, the Ministry of Digital Affairs told an emergency news conference yesterday morning. Two submarine cables connecting Taiwan proper and the outlying county — the No. 2 and No. 3 Taiwan-Matsu cables — were disconnected early yesterday morning and on Wednesday last week respectively, the nation’s largest telecom said. “After receiving the report that the No. 2 cable had failed, the ministry asked Chunghwa Telecom to immediately activate a microwave backup system, with
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