■RUSSIA
Retail sales rose 13.8%
Retail sales growth slowed last month as average wages rose at a slower pace. Sales climbed an annual 13.8 percent last month, compared with a revised 14.5 percent in May, the Moscow-based Federal Statistics Service said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. That was less than the 14.5 percent median forecast of 16 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Russia has entered its 10th consecutive year of economic growth, helping to boost wages and spending on food, clothes and other consumer goods. Average wages have increased sixfold since 2000. Wages increased an annual 11.7 percent last month, reaching 17,808 rubles (US$766.94), the Statistics Service said.
■AVIATION
SkyEurope to cut routes
Slovak low-cost airline SkyEurope plans to cut its routes this winter in the face of spiraling oil prices, the idnes.cz news Web site reported on Sunday, citing company officials. The airline is to cut flights from Prague to Sofia and Lisbon and from Slovakia’s Bratislava and Kosice to Irish and British destinations Dublin, Cork and Birmingham, the report said. The company, which flies to 41 European destinations, will also slash a planned route from the Czech capital to Larnaca, Cyprus. “We are canceling our longest flights that are understandably the most burdened by oil prices,” idnes.cz cited CEO Jason Bitter as saying. The company also plans to ground at least two from its 15 planes this winter, Bitter said. SkyEurope has been in the red since transporting its first passenger in 2002.
■ENERGY
Vopak obtains financing
Royal Vopak NV, the world’s largest oil and chemical storage company, said it got 745 million euros (US$1.2 billion) in financing for its Rotterdam liquefied natural gas terminal. Vopak got the financing from the European Investment Bank and a group of banks, the Rotterdam-based company said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. The company is building the 800 million euro terminal with Dutch gas distribution company Gasunie NV.
■AUTOMOBILES
Ssangyong to freeze facility
South Korea’s smallest automaker, Ssangyong Motor, will shut down its plant for almost three weeks this summer because of sluggish demand for its gas-guzzling SUVs, union officials said yesterday. The management and union at the Chinese-owned carmaker had agreed to the shutdown from July 31 through Aug. 17 at the plant in Pyeongtaek, union officials said. Workers will get 70 percent of their regular pay during the shutdown. The paint shop will be refurbished during this period. Ssangyong, owned by China’s Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp (上海汽車工業), was the only automaker among the country’s five players to report a fall in vehicle sales last month, with sales plunging 67 percent from a year earlier.
■FASHION
Esprit deputy chair quits
Esprit Holdings Ltd, the Hong Kong-based worldwide retailer of its own-brand clothes, said John Poon (潘祖明) resigned as deputy chairman and chief financial officer on Sunday to “pursue other interests.” Paul Cheng (鄭明訓), a 71-year-old independent non-executive director, was to take over as deputy chairman immediately, Esprit said in a statement to Hong Kong’s stock exchange yesterday. Ernst-Peter Vogel, senior vice president for finance in Europe at the firm, was named deputy chief financial officer.
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
COORDINATION, ASSURANCE: Separately, representatives reintroduced a bill that asks the state department to review guidelines on how the US engages with Taiwan US senators on Tuesday introduced the Taiwan travel and tourism coordination act, which they said would bolster bilateral travel and cooperation. The bill, proposed by US senators Marsha Blackburn and Brian Schatz, seeks to establish “robust security screenings for those traveling to the US from Asia, open new markets for American industry, and strengthen the economic partnership between the US and Taiwan,” they said in a statement. “Travel and tourism play a crucial role in a nation’s economic security,” but Taiwan faces “pressure and coercion from the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]” in this sector, the statement said. As Taiwan is a “vital trading
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