■CHINA
Zoellick calls for revaluation
World Bank president Robert Zoellick said on Monday that it was timely for China to revalue its currency. He said that as export-driven China remakes its society to depend more on consumer spending, it could become an opportunity to revalue the currency. Zoellick told Wall Street Journal Online that aside from increasing the purchasing power of ordinary Chinese people, an appreciating currency would also send a signal to local firms to focus future investment and capacity more toward domestic demand rather than producing for export. “People who focus on structural explanations say a quick change in currency appreciation is not going to lead to automatic shifts in industrial structure,” he said.
■GREECE
Bond issue raises 5bn euros
Greece raised 5 billion euros (US$6.74 billion) on Monday with a seven-year bond issue, in a crucial first borrowing test after the euro zone unveiled a rescue last week to help Athens cope with its acute debt crisis. However, the government’s borrowing costs remain higher than it wants. The bonds were sold at a coupon yield of 5.9 percent, a statement from the Public Debt Management Agency said. State-run media said around 7 billion euros in offers were received. The high yield comes before deadlines in next month and May to refinance about 20 billion euros in debt, with total borrowing needs at 54 billion euros this year.
■ELECTRONICS
Pegatron to make iPhones
A subsidiary of Taiwan netbook PC pioneer Asustek has won orders to manufacture Apple’s iPhone to run on the CDMA standard, a source said yesterday. Apple is said to be developing a CDMA-compatible iPhone that would work on leading US mobile carrier Verizon Communications Inc’s network, the Wall Street Journal had reported earlier, citing people familiar with the matter. The Taiwanese firm, Pegatron (和碩), will begin shipping the phones from next year, a source close to the firm said. The source could not confirm if the products would be for Verizon’s network.
■HONG KONG
Hutchison profit rises 12%
Hong Kong’s Hutchison Whampoa (和記黃埔) said yesterday net profit rose 12 percent last year, as property sale gains more than offset losses at its energy and 3G technology units. The port-to-telecoms conglomerate said in a statement to the region’s stock exchange net profit was HK$14.17 billion (US$1.8 billion) last year, up from HK$12.68 billion in 2008. However, total revenue dropped 14 percent to HK$300.55 billion, mainly due to a business slump at its Canada-listed affiliate Husky Energy due to sharp declines in oil and gas prices last year, it said.
■CHINA
McDonald’s to double
McDonald’s said yesterday it plans to nearly double its number of outlets in China by the end of 2013 as the US fast-food giant seeks to expand its presence in the world’s biggest developing economy. The company aims to boost the number of its outlets in China to 2,000 from around 1,100 in three years, Dow Jones Newswires reported, citing Tim Fenton, the company’s president of Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa. McDonald’s will open 150 to 175 outlets in the country this year, its China chief executive Kenneth Chan (曾啟山) said.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
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