■ CHINA
Wal-Mart still in the game
Wal-Mart Stores Inc expects procurement in China to hold steady this year at about US$9 billion despite a rising exchange rate and product safety concerns, vice chairman Michael Duke said yesterday. Chinese suppliers have stayed competitive amid higher inflation and a rise in the yuan by improving efficiency and product quality, he said. "I wouldn't see any major variation" in procurement from last year's total of US$9 billion, he said. "China will continue to be a major production portion of direct purchases by Wal-Mart for a long time."
■ METALS
Power cuts trim jobs
Gold Fields Ltd, Africa's second-biggest gold producer, said it may eliminate 6,900 jobs, or 13 percent of its South African workforce, as limited power supplies reduce production. The company plans to close part of its Driefontein and Kloof mines and remodel its South Deep mine, it said in a statement to Johannesburg's Stock Exchange News Service yesterday. Gold Fields is the first major company to announce job cuts as a result of Eskom Holdings Ltd limiting power supplies to mines in South Africa to 90 percent of normal consumption.
■ ENERGY
Rains cut coal output
BHP Billiton Ltd, the world's biggest mining company, said rainfall in Queensland is expected to cut its share of coal production by as much as 4.6 million tonnes this business year. Total production at the BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance venture will be reduced by between 6.5 million and 7.5 million tonnes in the year ending June 30, BHP Billiton said yesterday in a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange. Output at BHP Billiton Mitsui-owned mines will also be cut by between 500,000 and 1 million tonnes, it said. At least six coal suppliers in Queensland have warned customers they may miss contracted deliveries from some mines in the Australian state since monsoonal rains affected the Bowen Basin last month. The disruptions have helped drive spot prices for power-station coal and the type used in steelmaking to a record.
■ BANKING
Bank to sue informant
The Liechtenstein bank at the center of a tax evasion dispute with Germany said on Sunday it will sue the person it suspects of selling confidential information to German intelligence. LGT Group, which is wholly owned by the principality's ruling family, said it would file charges against a former employee convicted of stealing DVDs containing the names of 1,400 customers of its subsidiary LGT Treuhand. The bank identified the employee as a Liechtenstein citizen and said it believed until recently that the stolen information had been returned when the man was convicted in 2004 of serious fraud, harassment and sequestering documents and sentenced to a suspended one-year prison term.
■ THAILAND
Exports boost economy
The economy grew a faster-than-expected 5.7 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier on robust exports and a recovery in private investment and consumer spending, the government said yesterday. Exports rose strongly despite the baht's appreciation over the last two years and fears about a global economic slowdown. The economic planning agency raised its growth forecast for this year to 4.5 percent to 5.5 percent, up from an earlier projection of 4 percent to 5 percent.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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