■ SOUTH KOREA
US beef imports jump
Just three months after going back on sale despite massive protests, US beef imports last month accounted for nearly half of the total value of the meat brought in, a report said yesterday. The Agro-Fisheries Trade Corporation statistics, issued by Yonhap news agency, said South Korea imported US$43.98 million of US beef, 43 percent of the total value of beef imports last month. In terms of tonnage, US beef accounted for 35 percent of the total last month, with 7,030 tonnes shipped to South Korea, the figures said. The country was once the world’s third-largest market for US beef, with imported US$850 million of it per year until imports were suspended in 2003 after a US case of mad cow disease.
■ AUTOMOBILES
Daimler suspends production
German carmaker Daimler, hit by falling demand amid the global financial crisis, plans to suspend production for a month beginning in December, a newspaper said in report to be published yesterday. The break in production would begin on Dec. 11 and last until Jan. 12, Frankfurter Sonntagszeitung reported, citing a company spokesman. Daimler, the first luxury car maker to present its quarterly results, unveiled big drops in profits on Thursday and issued a new profit warning owing to the global banking crisis. “The financial crisis is turning into an economic crisis,” Daimler chairman Dieter Zetsche told a telephone news conference. It provoked “in recent weeks a dramatic slump on our major markets,” he said. “The situation is very challenging,” Zetsche said. “We are living in extraordinary times.”
■ TELECOMS
Saudi Telecom profit drops
Saudi Telecom Co, the kingdom’s largest telecommunications company, said third quarter profit fell 4.1 percent on expansion costs. Net income declined to 3.01 billion riyals (US$804 million) from 3.14 billion riyals a year earlier, the company said in a statement to the Saudi bourse yesterday. Nine-month earnings per share rose to 4.94 riyals from 4.48 riyals. Saudi Telecom will pay a dividend of 2 billion riyals, or 1 riyal a share, for the third-quarter, the company said.
■ FINANCE
Kuwait to guarantee deposits
The Kuwaiti government will move urgently to guarantee deposits in local banks in a bid to strengthen confidence in the financial system, the central bank said yesterday. “The government will urgently submit a draft law [to parliament] to guarantee deposits in local banks,” said a statement by the central bank posted on the Kuwait Stock Exchange Web site.
■ TEXTILES
China exports ‘stable’
China will keep textile exports “stable and sustainable” next year as it ends controls on shipments to the US and Europe, and WTO restrictions end. The Ministry of Commerce will maintain “dialogue and communication” with relevant countries as limits imposed on China’s textile exports by the WTO expire on Dec. 31, the ministry said in a statement published on its Web site. China aims to boost next year’s textile exports while avoiding any unwanted expansion of output after the restrictions end. The nation wants to minimize trade friction next year as textile agreements signed with the US and Europe also run out next year. “Local ministry of commerce offices should continue to do their job in helping enterprises to change growth models and adjust product structures,” the ministry said.
‘DANGEROUS GAME’: Legislative Yuan budget cuts have already become a point of discussion for Democrats and Republicans in Washington, Elbridge Colby said Taiwan’s fall to China “would be a disaster for American interests” and Taipei must raise defense spending to deter Beijing, US President Donald Trump’s pick to lead Pentagon policy, Elbridge Colby, said on Tuesday during his US Senate confirmation hearing. The nominee for US undersecretary of defense for policy told the Armed Services Committee that Washington needs to motivate Taiwan to avoid a conflict with China and that he is “profoundly disturbed” about its perceived reluctance to raise defense spending closer to 10 percent of GDP. Colby, a China hawk who also served in the Pentagon in Trump’s first team,
SEPARATE: The MAC rebutted Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is China’s province, asserting that UN Resolution 2758 neither mentions Taiwan nor grants the PRC authority over it The “status quo” of democratic Taiwan and autocratic China not belonging to each other has long been recognized by the international community, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday in its rebuttal of Beijing’s claim that Taiwan can only be represented in the UN as “Taiwan, Province of China.” Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) yesterday at a news conference of the third session at the 14th National People’s Congress said that Taiwan can only be referred to as “Taiwan, Province of China” at the UN. Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese territory, which is not only history but
CROSSED A LINE: While entertainers working in China have made pro-China statements before, this time it seriously affected the nation’s security and interests, a source said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) late on Saturday night condemned the comments of Taiwanese entertainers who reposted Chinese statements denigrating Taiwan’s sovereignty. The nation’s cross-strait affairs authority issued the statement after several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑), Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜) and Michelle Chen (陳妍希), on Friday and Saturday shared on their respective Sina Weibo (微博) accounts a post by state broadcaster China Central Television. The post showed an image of a map of Taiwan along with the five stars of the Chinese flag, and the message: “Taiwan is never a country. It never was and never will be.” The post followed remarks
INVESTMENT WATCH: The US activity would not affect the firm’s investment in Taiwan, where 11 production lines would likely be completed this year, C.C. Wei said Investments by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) in the US should not be a cause for concern, but rather seen as the moment that the company and Taiwan stepped into the global spotlight, President William Lai (賴清德) told a news conference at the Presidential Office in Taipei yesterday alongside TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家). Wei and US President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday announced plans to invest US$100 billion in the US to build three advanced foundries, two packaging plants, and a research and development center, after Trump threatened to slap tariffs on chips made
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