■AVIATION
Air Canada cutting jobs
Air Canada has announced plans to cut another 345 jobs as it copes with decreased demand. Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said on Saturday that the cuts will mostly affect its 5,700 flight attendants, beginning on March 2. The latest job cuts are in addition to the 2,000 positions Air Canada said it was eliminating last June, when fuel prices were sky high.
■FINANCE
Obama to tighten system
US President Barack Obama plans to tighten the US financial regulatory system, introducing stricter rules for hedge funds, credit rating agencies and mortgage brokers, the New York Times reported yesterday. Citing administration officials, the newspaper said the new Democratic administration wants to eliminate conflicts of interest at credit rating agencies that gave top investment grades to new and unproven financial instruments that have been a source of market turmoil. The administration is likely to propose new federal standards for mortgage brokers and bolster the role of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the report said.
■BEVERAGES
Starbucks jobs under threat
Coffee chain Starbucks Corp could cut another 1,000 jobs in the coming weeks, a report in the Seattle Times on Saturday said. The latest cuts could include employees at its Seattle headquarters, district managers and field employees but not the so-called baristas, who serve customers, said the report, which cited a client note from an analyst at McAdams Wright Ragen. A Starbucks spokeswoman declined to comment. The coffee chain, which has been fighting to revive growth in the US, is closing 600 cafes and has already trimmed jobs in stores and at headquarters.
■AUTOMOBILES
Ford says sales to be stable
Ford Motor Co, the second-largest US automaker, said US sales for light trucks and cars this month are expected to be about the same as last month, when the annual sales rate was about 10.3 million. Tight credit and a weak economy means sales in the US are unlikely to increase, Ford’s chief executive officer Alan Mulally told reporters after a speech on Saturday at the National Automobile Dealers Association conference in New Orleans. “Everybody is struggling right now in the US economy,” Mulally said. “Things will start to get better in the second quarter” due to the government’s economic stimulus plans.”
■FOOD
Inspectors find listeria
The Canadian food maker linked to a bacteria outbreak that caused at least 20 deaths and the country’s largest meat recall last year has again tested positive for listeria. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency on Saturday inspected a subsidiary of Maple Leaf Foods after testing showed positive results for listeria bacterium. The subsidiary, Cappola Food Inc, makes deli meat for the Canadian and US markets. No illnesses have been reported. Listeriosis is a type of food poisoning.
■AUTOMOBILES
Continental head to go
Continental AG announced on Saturday that its chairman was stepping down, only weeks after the Schaeffler Group KG completed its purchase of the tire and auto parts maker. Schaeffler, which makes ball bearings, asked that Hubertus von Gruenberg resign as chairman of the board. Von Gruenberg will retain a seat on the board of the company.
■ BUILDING SUPPLIE
Mitsubishi to stop shipments
Mitsubishi Materials Corp, a Japanese producer of metals and building supplies, said it will stop shipping cement to the US from China amid falling construction demand. The company will halt shipments to the US for a year and deliver its Chinese cement production to local markets, spokesman Nobuyuki Suzuki said yesterday. The Nikkei newspaper reported the plan earlier yesterday.
■FOOD
China seizes Irish pork
Chinese quarantine authorities in the eastern city of Nanjing have seized more than 23 tonnes of frozen Irish pork that was found to be contaminated with dioxin and ordered it be returned, state media said yesterday. The pork was imported by a company in the nearby city of Suzhou in October, the official Xinhua news agency said. “Inspectors sealed the pork and ordered the company to send it back,” the report said. China banned the import of Irish pork last month following Dublin’s order to recall domestically produced pork products because of contamination with dioxin, which in some forms and concentrations, and with long exposure, can cause cancer.
■FOOD
Malaysia tests peanut butter
Malaysia is testing all American peanut butter products before allowing them into the country following a salmonella scare in the US, the Star Daily reported yesterday. Hundreds of people have fallen ill in the US, and a chain of cookie shops has recalled of one of its products here fearing it could be contaminated. “[We] raised the alert to level five at all ports to ensure that the incoming batches were free from salmonella contamination,” Malaysian Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai (廖中萊) told the paper. “It’s very specific. We are focusing on one product — peanut butter.”
■SINGAPORE
PM promises decisive action
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) has assured Singaporeans that his government would respond to the economic crisis decisively, according to a Sunday Times report. By taking the unprecedented step of unlocking Singapore national reserves, the government was sending out a clear signal that it intends “to respond to the crisis decisively and with all means at our disposal,” said Lee in his traditional Lunar New Year message on Saturday night. Lee has also warned that the crisis could see Singapore’s economy contract for months and perhaps for the whole year. Lee’s government has projected a minus 5 percent to minus 2 percent contraction of the Singapore economy this year, the worst economic outlook for the city state since independence.
■THAILAND
PM vows to boost taxes
Newly appointed Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva vowed to boost property and inheritance taxes, although he acknowledged yesterday that the legislative process would require a year or more. “It will take a year of so but it is a process we are starting,” Abhisit said on his weekly television show. Abhisit, who was voted prime minister by parliament on Dec. 15, stirred up controversy last week by throwing his support behind higher taxes on property and inheritance as a means of boosting government revenues and creating a more equitable society. Supporters of the new taxes have noted that 90 percent of the Thai population own less that one rai (0.16 hectares) of land per person, while the remaining 10 percent own more than 100 rai.
EXTRATERRITORIAL REACH: China extended its legal jurisdiction to ban some dual-use goods of Chinese origin from being sold to the US, even by third countries Beijing has set out to extend its domestic laws across international borders with a ban on selling some goods to the US that applies to companies both inside and outside China. The new export control rules are China’s first attempt to replicate the extraterritorial reach of US and European sanctions by covering Chinese products or goods with Chinese parts in them. In an announcement this week, China declared it is banning the sale of dual-use items to the US military and also the export to the US of materials such as gallium and germanium. Companies and people overseas would be subject to
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) yesterday said that Intel Corp would find itself in the same predicament as it did four years ago if its board does not come up with a core business strategy. Chang made the remarks in response to reporters’ questions about the ailing US chipmaker, once an archrival of TSMC, during a news conference in Taipei for the launch of the second volume of his autobiography. Intel unexpectedly announced the immediate retirement of former chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger last week, ending his nearly four-year tenure and ending his attempts to revive the
WORLD DOMINATION: TSMC’s lead over second-placed Samsung has grown as the latter faces increased Chinese competition and the end of clients’ product life cycles Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) retained the No. 1 title in the global pure-play wafer foundry business in the third quarter of this year, seeing its market share growing to 64.9 percent to leave South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co, the No. 2 supplier, further behind, Taipei-based TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report. TSMC posted US$23.53 billion in sales in the July-September period, up 13.0 percent from a quarter earlier, which boosted its market share to 64.9 percent, up from 62.3 percent in the second quarter, the report issued on Monday last week showed. TSMC benefited from the debut of flagship
TENSE TIMES: Formosa Plastics sees uncertainty surrounding the incoming Trump administration in the US, geopolitical tensions and China’s faltering economy Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), Taiwan’s largest industrial conglomerate, yesterday posted overall revenue of NT$118.61 billion (US$3.66 billion) for last month, marking a 7.2 percent rise from October, but a 2.5 percent fall from one year earlier. The group has mixed views about its business outlook for the current quarter and beyond, as uncertainty builds over the US power transition and geopolitical tensions. Formosa Plastics Corp (台灣塑膠), a vertically integrated supplier of plastic resins and petrochemicals, reported a monthly uptick of 15.3 percent in its revenue to NT$18.15 billion, as Typhoon Kong-rey postponed partial shipments slated for October and last month, it said. The
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