Honda Motor Co, suffering from a 38 percent plunge in US auto sales last month, may ask to borrow money from Japan’s government to lend to US car buyers.
The amount of the loans and timing of the request to the state-owned Japan Bank for International Cooperation have not yet been determined, spokeswoman Akemi Ando said by phone yesterday.
Mazda Motor Corp is also considering a request for government loans, spokesman Toyota Tanaka said yesterday.
Honda and Mazda would follow Toyota Motor Corp, Japan’s biggest carmaker, in seeking loans from the government as the global recession hammers auto demand. Toyota’s financial unit may ask for ¥200 billion (US$2 billion) in loans, public broadcaster NHK reported on Tuesday, without citing anyone.
“Things look pretty grim at present,” said Edwin Merner, president of Atlantis Investment Research Corp in Tokyo, which manages US$3.1 billion. “By the end of the year, the year-on-year figures should start improving unless the world economy gets much worse.”
Honda may request at least ¥10 billion from the government, the Nikkei newspaper said yesterday, without citing sources.
Mazda, the Japanese carmaker partially owned by Ford Motor Co, increasingly needs the funds, mainly in the US and Europe, Tanaka said in a phone interview.
No details have been decided regarding a request for government funding, he said.
Japan will use some of its foreign-exchange reserves to lend to the state-owned bank that gives financing to Japanese companies operating abroad, Japanese Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano said on Tuesday.
The ministry may lend about US$5 billion to the bank this month, he said.
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
COMBAT READINESS: The military is reviewing weaponry, personnel resources, and mobilization and recovery forces to adjust defense strategies, the defense minister said The military has released a photograph of Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) appearing to sit beside a US general during the annual Han Kuang military exercises on Friday last week in a historic first. In the photo, Koo, who was presiding over the drills with high-level officers, appears to be sitting next to US Marine Corps Major General Jay Bargeron, the director of strategic planning and policy of the US Indo-Pacific Command, although only Bargeron’s name tag is visible in the seat as “J5 Maj General.” It is the first time the military has released a photo of an active
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.
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