■ BANKING
Demand high for stock
French bank Societe Generale, forced into a capital increase by a massive rogue trader scandal, said on Tuesday that demand for the new shares totaled almost twice the amount of stock on offer. The group launched the operation in February to raise 5.5 billion euros (US$8.5 billion) to bolster confidence and compensate for losses attributed to unauthorized trading by Jerome Kerviel, who faces criminal charges. Societe Generale said demand for the new shares totaled 1.8 time the number of shares being issued. The total losses from Kerviel's trading were put at 4.911 billion euros by the bank.
■ AUTOMOBILES
Yachiyo builds new plant
A Honda subsidiary is building a new plant in Japan to build mini-vehicles, the Japanese car maker said yesterday, as soaring gas prices boosts demand for the cheap, fuel-efficient tiny cars. Yachiyo Industry Co Ltd, a subsidiary of Honda Motor Co, will build a new plant in Mie Prefecture in central Japan, with engine production set to start next year and auto production a year later, the Tokyo-based company said in a statement. Production capacity, when combined with an older nearby plant, will total 240,000 a year, and the new plant will make mini-vehicles such as Life and Zest models, Honda said.
■ FOREX
China seeks alternatives
China's vast sovereign wealth fund is expanding the scope of its investments beyond traditional assets like stocks and bonds to private equity and hedge funds, state media reported yesterday. The US$200 billion China Investment Corp (中國投資公司) has already entrusted money to external asset managers to focus on these alternative investments, the China Securities Journal said, citing Jesse Wang (汪建熙), the fund's vice president. Wang also said that the fund planned to set up branches in global financial centers. "The basic point for our overseas investments is being a financial investor. We seek maximum investment returns with manageable risks," the newspaper quoted Wang as saying.
■ AVIATION
Boeing to protest contract
Boeing said on Monday that it would protest the Air Force's award of a US$35 billion contract to build aerial refueling planes to a group that includes its European rival Airbus. The protest, to be made yesterday to the Government Accountability Office, had appeared increasingly likely in recent days as Boeing officials issued a series of statements indicating that they felt they had been treated unfairly. Boeing has a long history of making refueling tankers and was widely expected to win the contract. The GAO would have 100 days to review the action.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm named Trami at 2am yesterday, and is projected to move west-northwest toward waters east of Luzon Island, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 8am, Trami’s center was 700km east of Manila, or 1,180km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost tip, moving in a northwesterly direction. It was carrying maximum sustained winds of 65kph, with gusts of up to 90kph, CWA data showed. The weather agency forecast the center of the storm would be over waters 470km east-northeast of Manila or 820km southeast of Oluanpi at 8am today, and urged ships
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday temporarily shut down the nation’s nuclear energy generation as the state-run utility started regular maintenance on the remaining reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant for 41 days. The No. 2 reactor of the nation’s only active nuclear plant in Pingtung County’s Hengchun Township (恆春) is set to be decommissioned next year. The No. 1 reactor has been offline since July. The shutdown is to perform equipment maintenance and fuel replacement in preparation for the power plant’s next operating cycle, Taipower said in a statement. With support from other energy sources, Taipower would ensure sufficient power supply
TROUBLED WATERS: The ministers also said they opposed China’s obstruction of freedom of navigation in the South China Sea and the militarization of disputed features G7 defense ministers in a joint statement on Saturday singled out China over a number of concerns, including its “provocative actions” near Taiwan. The defense ministers of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US gathered in Naples, Italy, from Friday to yesterday for the group’s first ministerial meeting dedicated to defense. In the joint declaration, they stressed “enduring unity and common determination to address, in a cohesive and concrete manner, security challenges, at a time in history marked by great instability.” In addition to voicing support for Ukraine, expressing concern about the escalating conflict in the Middle East and condemning
BIGGEST TROUBLEMAKER: China should not be carrying out any such exercises given the threat to regional peace and stability, Premier Cho Jung-tai said yesterday The Ministry of National Defense yesterday said that live-fire Chinese drills in a province facing Taiwan are part of routine annual drills, but also possibly part of China’s “deterrence effect” in the waters of the Taiwan Strait. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration, in a notice late on Monday, said an area around Niushan Island in China’s Fujian Province would be closed off for four hours from 9am yesterday for live-fire drills. Niushan sits just south of the Taiwan-controlled Matsu islands. The ministry in a statement said that the exercises are part of routine Chinese training and it was keeping a close watch, but