■ TRANSPORT
Alstom slams Beijing
Alstom Transport, the world’s second-largest train maker, is calling on nations not to buy Chinese-made trains, accusing the country of shutting foreign firms out of domestic bids, a report said yesterday. Alstom chief executive Philippe Mellier told the Financial Times that China is also exporting trains with some foreign technology that was supplied on condition that it not be used outside China. “The [Chinese] market is gradually shutting down to let the Chinese companies prosper,” Mellier said. “We don’t think it’s a good idea for other countries to open their markets to such a technology, because there’s no reciprocity any more.”
■ELECTRONICS
Creative posts a loss
Creative Technology Ltd, the Singaporean maker of accessories for Apple Inc’s iPod, eliminated 2,700 jobs, almost half its workforce, last fiscal year after demand for its own music players tumbled. The company had 3,100 full-time workers at the end of June, down 47 percent from a year earlier, Creative said in an annual report filed to Singapore’s stock exchange on Dec. 31. “The markets that Creative targets are highly competitive,” the company said in the report. “Many of Creative’s current and potential competitors have substantially greater financial, manufacturing, marketing, distribution and other resources.” Creative posted a net loss of US$19.7 million on sales of US$736.8 million for the year ended June 30. That’s the lowest revenue in five years as sales of its music players slumped.
■AUTOMAKERS
Hyundai leads sales decline
Hyundai Motor Co, South Korea’s biggest automaker, led a decline in the country’s automobile sales last month, marking the second straight monthly decline, as a global recession sapped demand for new vehicles. Hyundai, Kia Motors Corp, GM Daewoo Auto & Technology Co, Renault Samsung Motors Co and Ssangyong Motor Co sold a combined 406,051 vehicles last month, 13 percent less than a year earlier, Bloomberg calculations based on company data released yesterday showed. Sales last year gained 2.4 percent to 5.35 million units, as sales in emerging markets offset sluggish sales in the US, Europe and at home. “This year, the impact from the global economic crisis is expected to deepen and we’re standing in the middle of cut-throat competition for survival,” Hyundai chairman Chung Mong-koo told employees yesterday in Seoul. Last year, their local sales dropped 5.1 percent to 1.15 million units and overseas sales rose 4.7 percent to 4.2 million, the firms’ data showed.
■MEDIA
Subscribers keep shows
Millions of subscribers to the Time Warner Cable television network kept their favorite shows into the new year on Thursday after an agreement in principle on rights fees was reached in a bitter dispute with entertainment giant Viacom Inc. Viacom had threatened to pull Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, VH1 and 15 other channels from Time Warner and its 13.3 million subscribers at 12:01am on Thursday if a deal had not been reached. The companies said they expect to finalize the agreement details over the next several days.
■BEVERAGES
Pepsi to invest in India
India’s government approved a plan by PepsiCo Inc, the world’s second-biggest beverage maker, to invest an additional US$50 million in its local unit, Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal said. Sibal was speaking to reporters after a Cabinet meeting in New Delhi.
AIR DEFENSE: The Norwegian missile system has proved highly effective in Ukraine in its war against Russia, and the US has recommended it for Taiwan, an expert said The Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) Taiwan ordered from the US would be installed in strategically important positions in Taipei and New Taipei City to guard the region, the Ministry of National Defense said in statement yesterday. The air defense system would be deployed in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山) and New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水), the ministry said, adding that the systems could be delivered as soon as the end of this year. The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency has previously said that three NASAMS would be sold to Taiwan. The weapons are part of the 17th US arms sale to
INSURRECTION: The NSB said it found evidence the CCP was seeking snipers in Taiwan to target members of the military and foreign organizations in the event of an invasion The number of Chinese spies prosecuted in Taiwan has grown threefold over a four-year period, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report released yesterday. In 2021 and 2022, 16 and 10 spies were prosecuted respectively, but that number grew to 64 last year, it said, adding that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was working with gangs in Taiwan to develop a network of armed spies. Spies in Taiwan have on behalf of the CCP used a variety of channels and methods to infiltrate all sectors of the country, and recruited Taiwanese to cooperate in developing organizations and obtaining sensitive information
BREAKTHROUGH: The US is making chips on par in yield and quality with Taiwan, despite people saying that it could not happen, the official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has begun producing advanced 4-nanometer (nm) chips for US customers in Arizona, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said, a milestone in the semiconductor efforts of the administration of US President Joe Biden. In November last year, the commerce department finalized a US$6.6 billion grant to TSMC’s US unit for semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona. “For the first time ever in our country’s history, we are making leading edge 4-nanometer chips on American soil, American workers — on par in yield and quality with Taiwan,” Raimondo said, adding that production had begun in recent
Seven hundred and sixty-four foreigners were arrested last year for acting as money mules for criminals, with many entering Taiwan on a tourist visa for all-expenses-paid trips, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said on Saturday. Although from Jan. 1 to Dec. 26 last year, 26,478 people were arrested for working as money mules, the bureau said it was particularly concerned about those entering the country as tourists or migrant workers who help criminals and scammers pick up or transfer illegally obtained money. In a report, officials divided the money mules into two groups, the first of which are foreigners, mainly from Malaysia
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