■ POLAND
Cabinet drafts finance plan
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Sunday his Cabinet had prepared a 24 billion euro (US$31 billion) plan to stabilize the nation’s finances and boost the economy. Tusk said the plan was preventative and that the country was in a “not bad situation despite the crisis.” The plan, which includes credit and deposit guarantees, credits for businesses and paves the way for faster absorption of EU funds, needs approval from parliament. The government already attempted to bolster confidence in the banking sector by guaranteeing deposits up to 50,000 euros. Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski said on Sunday the Cabinet also revised its projected GDP growth for next year to 3.7 percent from an earlier estimate of 4.8 percent.
■RUSSIA
Growth forecast slashed
The economic development ministry significantly downgraded next year’s growth forecast, but denied falling oil prices would spark an economic crisis, Ria Novosti news agency reported on Sunday. The economy would grow by between 3 percent and 3.5 percent next year, Deputy Economic Development Minister Andrei Klepach was quoted as saying, far less than the up to 5.7 percent growth predicted by the finance minister last month. Still, “the drop in oil prices to US$50 [a barrel] does not create a crisis,” Klepach was quoted as saying. He also revised downward growth for this year to between 6.8 percent and 7 percent, compared with an earlier estimate of 7.3 percent.
■AUTOMOBILES
Hyundai’s car sales dip
Hyundai Motor Co, South Korea’s largest automaker, said sales last month dropped 1.6 percent from a year earlier as the global economic slump cut vehicle demand. Hyundai sold 234,211 Elantra small cars, Sonata sedans and other models last month, the fewest in three months, compared with 237,941 last year, the Seoul-based carmaker said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Domestic sales tumbled 34 percent while sales out of South Korea rose 8.2 percent. Hyundai is cutting output at domestic factories and in the US as fewer customers are buying new cars amid tighter credit and economic contraction.
■OIL
Exxon retains LNG forecast
Exxon Mobil Corp is keeping its forecast of 4 percent demand growth for liquefied natural gas (LNG) until 2030 even as the global economy contracts, said Peter Graham, manager of the company’s Papua New Guinea LNG project. Exxon expects to award an engineering contract for the facility in the second half of next year and seek long-term leases for its gas tanker supply in the first quarter, Graham said at a conference in Sydney yesterday. LNG is natural gas chilled to liquid form, reducing it to one six-hundredth of its original volume, for transportation by tanker to destinations not connected by pipeline.
■FINANCE
Zurich Financial buys firms
Zurich Financial Services AG, Switzerland’s biggest insurer, completed its purchase of two Brazilian insurers from Banco Mercantil do Brasil SA. Zurich Financial’s Brazilian unit took an 87 percent stake in Companhia de Seguros Minas Brasil and full control of Minas Brasil Seguradora Vida e Previdencia SA, the Zurich-based company said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. The Swiss insurer agreed to buy the two companies for 286 million reais (US$124.1 million) in July.
Taiwan aims to open 18 representative offices and seven Taiwan Tourism Information Centers worldwide by next year to attract international visitors, the Tourism Administration said on Saturday. The agency has so far opened three representative offices abroad this year and would open two more before the end of the year, it said. It has also already opened information centers in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris, and is to open one in Vancouver next month and in Manila in December, it said. Next year, it would also open offices in Amsterdam, Dubai and Sydney, it added. While the Cabinet did not mention international tourists in its
EYES AT SEA: Many marine enthusiasts have expressed interest in volunteering for coastal patrols, which would help identify stowaways and illegal fishing, the CGA said Six thousand coastal patrol volunteers are to be recruited for 159 inspection offices to enhance the nation’s response to “gray zone” conflicts, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sources said yesterday. Volunteer teams would be established to increase the resilience of coastal defense systems in the wake of two unlawful entries attempted by Chinese over the past three months, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. A former Chinese navy captain drove a motorboat into the Tamsui River (淡水河) in Taipei on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, while another Chinese man sailed in a rubber boat into the Houkeng
NEXT LEVEL: The defense ministry confirmed that a video released last month featured personnel piloting new FPV drone systems being developed by the Armaments Bureau Taipei and Washington are pushing for their drone companies to work together to establish a China-free supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Friday. A delegation of high-level executives and US government officials were yesterday to arrive in Taipei to discuss with their Taiwanese counterparts collaboration on drone technology procurement and development, the report said. The executives represent 26 US manufacturers of drone and counter-drone systems, while the officials are from the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, along with Dev Shenoy, principal director for microelectronics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
‘ANONYMOUS 64’: A national security official said that it is an attempt by China to increase domestic anti-Taiwanese sentiment and inflame cross-strait tensions The Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM) yesterday denied accusations by China that it had undermined regional security by carrying out cyberattacks against targets in China, adding instead that Beijing was responsible for raising tensions and undermining regional peace. The Chinese Ministry of State Security on WeChat accused a hacker group called “Anonymous 64” of targeting China, Hong Kong and Macau starting earlier this year through frequent cyberattacks. The group carried out cyberattacks to seize control of Web sites, outdoor electronic billboards and video-on-demand platforms in China, Hong Kong and Macau, it said, adding the hackers’