China Motor exports Zingers
China Motor Corp (中華汽車), the nation's second-largest automaker, announced yesterday that it had exported its first batch of Zinger recreational vehicles. The maker exported 160 Zingers to the Philippines last Saturday. The vehicles will go on sale there late next month, it said in a statement.
Mitsubishi Motors Philippines has placed orders for 1,650 Zingers for the year, and volumes should grow to 2,000 units next year, the statement said.
The next target markets for Zinger would be Vietnam, the Middle East and central and south America, it said.
The Zinger is the second locally assembled model from China Motor to be exported to the Philippines, after the high-end Grunder sedan which went on sale their early last year.
Current-account surplus widens
The nation's current-account surplus widened in the first quarter of this year as exports rose.
The surplus rose to US$8.78 billion from a revised US$5.49 billion a year earlier, the central bank said yesterday in a statement. The surplus also grew from a revised US$8.46 billion in the fourth quarter.
The surplus on the income account, which includes dividend payments, widened to US$4 billion from US$3.63 billion a year earlier. The deficit on the services account, which includes travel spending, widened to US$1.44 billion from US$987 million.
The financial account, which measures investment flows, showed a deficit of US$10.97 billion, widening from a US$3.55 billion deficit in the same period a year earlier.
Direct investment showed a net outflow of US$146 million, less than the US$305 million a year earlier.
Portfolio investment had a net outflow of US$11.82 billion, more than the US$7.10 billion a year earlier.
Olga Zoutendijk appointed
Standard Chartered Bank yesterday announced the appointment of Olga Zoutendijk as head of wholesale banking in Asia. Olga will initially be based in Singapore before being relocated to Hong Kong from early next year.
The position was created as a result of continued strong growth in the wholesale banking business, and in order to bring more senior executive focus to the bank's long-term strategy for the region, Standard Chartered said in a statement that was released yesterday.
Zoutendijk's focus will be on assessing the competitive environment and evaluating acquisition and alliance opportunities across Asia, an area of key strategic focus for the bank, the statement said.
BenQ denies rumor
BenQ Corp (明基), the electronics maker that has posted six consecutive quarterly losses, said it has no plans to sell stock through a private placement, denying a report it may sell as many as 700 million new shares.
"We don't have that plan currently," said David Wang (王淡如), deputy chief financial officer at BenQ.
"We are looking at all options [to raise funds]," he said.
BenQ may sell as much as NT$9.1 billion (US$273 million) in new shares equivalent to a stake of about 30 percent, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday without citing anyone.
Last week, the company said it would sell its camera-making business and it was in talks to sell two Taipei headquarters office buildings.
NT dollar strengthens
The NT dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, increasing NT$0.001 to close at NT$33.370 on turnover of US$791 million.
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