■AVIATION
American delays new route
American Airlines said on Friday it was seeking to delay by a year its planned Chicago-Beijing service, set to begin in April next year. The largest US carrier said it had filed a request with the US Department of Transportation for a waiver to allow it to begin service between Chicago O’Hare International Airport and Beijing on April 4, 2010. The request “cited the extraordinary adverse market and operating conditions affecting the entire airline industry,” American Airlines said in a statement.
■JAPAN
Fukui to advise firm
Former Bank of Japan governor Toshihiko Fukui, who stepped down in March, is set to become a member of Matsushita Electric Industrial’s advisory panel, a newspaper reported yesterday. Matsushita, which is best known for its Panasonic brand, will ask Fukui to join its global affairs advisory panel, which will be set up next month, the Nikkei Shimbun said. Matsushita aims to tap Fukui’s knowledge on macroeconomics and global issues, it said.
■MACHINERY
Mitsubishi invests in plant
Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd will boost its production of core nuclear power equipment by investing ¥15 billion (US$138 million) in its key plant, a newspaper reported yesterday. The nation’s largest heavy machinery manufacturer plans to double production capacity at its nuclear power equipment plant in Akashi, western Japan, the Nikkei Shimbun daily said. Construction would begin in January for completion in mid-2011, it added.
■AVIATION
Airbus delays deliveries
Delivery of a second Airbus A380 to Emirates, the airline of the United Arab Emirates, will suffer a further delay of two months, French daily Le Figaro reported yesterday. Emirates put its first giant A380 into service on Aug. 1 with a direct flight from Dubai to New York. The Middle East’s biggest airline hopes by next spring to take delivery of four more jumbos serving London, Sydney and Auckland as well as New York. A further 53 A380s are scheduled to be delivered by June 2013. Delivery, held up by problems laying out the cabin, would not take place before Oct. 20, nearly two months late, Le Figaro said.
■AUTOMOBILES
Tata plant remains shut
Protests against a factory being built in eastern India to make the world’s cheapest car forced a halt to work for a second day yesterday as vehicle giant Tata Motors mulled the plant’s future. “There has been no improvement in the ground situation so far, hence the conditions are still not conducive for resuming work today,” Tata Motors said. “We continue to assess the situation closely” at the plant in Singur in West Bengal state.
■BANKING
US crisis claims 10th bank
Integrity Bank of Alpharetta on Friday became the 10th US bank to fail so far this year, done in by the very business it was built on — real estate lending. Regions Bank of Birmingham, Alabama, is assuming all of the Alpharetta, Georgia, banks’ US$974 million in insured and uninsured deposits in 23,000 accounts, and about US$34.4 million of the bank’s US$1.1 billion in assets. The remainder of Integrity Bank’s total assets are being retained by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The FDIC said it estimated that Integrity’s failure will cost its deposit insurance fund US$250 million to US$350 million.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
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