■JAPAN
More boosts may be needed
Tokyo is ready to take more stimulus measures if the deteriorating US economy continues to impact here, the finance minister said yesterday. Speaking on a program on the public broadcaster NHK, Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa cited US consumer spending at Christmas and the fates of troubled big US companies as among factors to watch. “These movements across the Pacific might affect Japan ... It is only natural that we carry out what is necessary, including fiscal, financial and tax measures, immediately after the second supplementary budget,” he said. The government is working on a second extra budget for the current fiscal year for submission to parliament possibly in January.
■SOUTH KOREA
Injection coming: report
Seoul’s central bank is likely to inject up to US$3.3 billion into a state fund aimed at easing a credit squeeze in the country’s debt market, a report said yesterday. The Financial Services Commission, the country’s financial watchdog, has promised to set up a 10 trillion won (US$6.7 billion) bond fund by pooling money from banks, pension funds and others. The Bank of Korea is highly likely to contribute up to 5 trillion won to the fund, which will be used to buy financial and corporate debts, Yonhap news agency said. It is scheduled to hold a policy meeting today to finalize the amount, Yonhap said.
■SWEDEN
Official goes salary-free
Lars Nordstrom isn’t the only official being criticized these days for earning too much money during the world financial crisis, but he may be one of the few who has reacted by deciding to work for free. Since becoming head of the Swedish postal service in July, Nordstrom has been paid 900,000 kronor (US$110,000) a month. And that is on top of the millions he receives in a retirement package from his previous job as chief executive officer of the banking group Nordea AB. The Swedish media have criticized Nordstrom for making more money as CEO of Posten Sverige AB than 45 letter carriers do, and seven times more than the prime minister. Nordstrom said on Saturday that he will give back all the money he has earned with the postal service and work for free from now on.
■BANKING
Dubai-based groups merge
Amlak Finance and Tamweel, two Dubai-based property finance groups with total assets of around US$7 billion, have begun a merger process, the WAM news agency reported on Saturday. The merger of the two banks under the supervision of UAE Real Estate Bank will create the largest real estate finance institution in the country, the UAE finance ministry said. “The merger of Amlak Finance and Tamweel is a milestone development for the UAE financial sector,” a ministry official said. The combined group will be compliant with Islamic Shariah rules, which ban the charging of interest, WAM said.
■SAUDI ARABIA
Interest rate slashed
The government announced yesterday that it is slashing its key interest rate by one percentage point to 3.0 percent on softening inflationary pressures, al-Arabiya news channel reported. The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency said it was reducing the repurchase (repo) rate, the country’s lending benchmark, by 100 basis points, the Dubai-based satellite channel said. It is the third cut in six weeks and the rate has almost halved since early last month, when it stood at 5.5 percent.
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,
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.
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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