■ENERGY
Entergy optimistic on spinoff
Entergy Corp’s plans to spin off six nuclear reactors including Indian Point in New York should be able to proceed because credit markets have eased, chief executive officer Wayne Leonard said. Entergy, the second-biggest US operator of nuclear power plants, is focused on getting approval from New York regulators, Leonard said. “Now the market is greatly improved,” Leonard said in an interview in Washington on Friday. “We had some investors this week that were making the point, ‘I don’t think you’d have any trouble raising US$4.5 billion for these kind of assets.’” New Orleans-based Entergy announced in November 2007 plans to create a company, Enexus Energy Corp, which would have almost 5,000 megawatts of nuclear generation.
■GERMANY
Recession may bottom out
The country’s recession may bottom out in the second half of the year as industrial production, private consumption and construction orders begin to stabilize, the Finance Ministry said. Europe’s largest economy is likely to contract less severely in the second quarter ending on June 30, the ministry said yesterday in its monthly report. Economic stimulus programs worth 82 billion euros (US$115 billion) have spurred municipal construction and supported consumption, notably boosting auto purchases, it said. Improved business and consumption sentiment “are a sign that the recession may bottom out in the second half of the year.” The country’s economy is forecast to contract 6 percent this year as the global recession curbs foreign demand for exports.
■OIL
PetroChina acquires SPC
Chinese oil giant PetroChina (中石油) announced yesterday that it had completed the acquisition of nearly half of refiner Singapore Petroleum Company (SPC) in a deal worth more than US$1 billion. PetroChina, the listed unit of the nation’s biggest oil and gas producer, has bought 45.51 percent of SPC’s issued share capital, the Chinese company said in a statement filed with the Shanghai stock exchange. PetroChina said last month it had agreed to buy the stake for US$1.02 billion from Keppel Oil and Gas Services, part of Singapore-based conglomerate Keppel Corp (吉寶企業). It will make a mandatory cash offer for the rest of the Singaporean refiner next month, it added. SPC, a regional energy company with interests in petroleum refining and marketing, owns a 50 percent stake in one of Singapore’s three major petroleum refiners. The deal is the latest high-profile overseas bid by China, which sits on US$1.9 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, to fuel its economy, now the world’s third-largest.
■NIGERIA
Takeovers may be allowed
Central bank governor Lamido Sanusi was prepared to break with a decades-old ban on foreign takeovers of its banks, he said in an interview with the Financial Times. “What we have today is that the central bank is not likely to support a foreign bank owning more than 10 percent of a top tier Nigerian bank. That is something that in my view needs to be looked at again,” Sanusi said. He said the ban was not a legal requirement but policy of the previous leadership of the Central Bank of Nigeria. “If as governor of central bank I am okay to have a bank owned by nominees and I don’t know who owns them, why wouldn’t I be comfortable with a bank owned by Barclays, or HSBC or China Construction Bank, who I know?” he added. “For me it’s a no-brainer.”
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary