AUSTRALIA
Canberra holds WTO case
The government is to temporarily suspend its WTO case against China over tariffs on barley, while Beijing undertakes a three-month review of the restrictions, in a potential breakthrough to the long-running dispute between the nations. Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong (黃英賢) yesterday announced the agreement alongside Minister for Trade and Tourism Don Farrell at a news conference in Adelaide, saying they were hopeful of a similar agreement for China’s tariffs on Australian wine. “We are hopeful that at the end of that review process the impediments that currently exist will be suspended or removed and that we can get back to normal trade with China,” Farrell said.
JAPAN
Buffett eyeing Japan stocks
Warren Buffett is turning his focus back to Japan as he intends to boost his investments in the country, the Nikkei reported. Shares of major trading houses — Mitsubishi Corp, Mitsui & Co, Marubeni Corp, Sumitomo Corp and Itochu Corp — yesterday rose after Buffett said he had raised Berkshire Hathaway Inc’s holdings in them to 7.4 percent from about 5 percent in 2020 and is looking to increase his exposure to Japanese stocks, the Nikkei report said. “This may encourage foreign investors to invest in Japanese stocks, especially in value stocks,” T&D Asset Management Co chief strategist Hiroshi Namioka said.
SOUTH KOREA
Regulator fines Google
The Korea Fair Trade Commission has fined Alphabet Inc’s Google 42.1 billion won (US$31.83 million) for blocking the release of mobile video games on a competitor’s platform. The commission yesterday said that Google bolstered its market dominance, and hurt local app market One Store’s revenue and value as a platform, by requiring video game makers to exclusively release their titles on Google Play in exchange for providing in-app exposure between June 2016 and April 2018. Game makers affected by Google’s action include Netmarble Corp, Nexon Co and NCSOFT Corp, as well as other smaller companies, the antitrust regulator said.
NEW ZEALAND
House sales tumble
House sales fell to a record low in the three months through December as interest-rate hikes and plunging property prices pushed buyers to the sidelines. Sales of residential and lifestyle properties fell to 13,890 in the fourth quarter last year, which was the lowest since records began in 1990, according to CoreLogic New Zealand data published yesterday by the Reserve Bank in Wellington. The volume is below the previous low of 15,579 seen during the 2008 global financial crisis. The CoreLogic data includes all settled property sales and the third-quarter sales were revised to 15,880 from 14,996 previously.
AVIATION
Airbus deliveries down 9%
Airbus SE delivered 127 jets in the first quarter, a 9 percent drop from a year earlier, as shortages of parts such as engines spilled into the new year. Deliveries totaled 61 aircraft in March, the world’s biggest maker of commercial jetliners said yesterday in a statement. The lower first-quarter tally would make it harder for Airbus to reach its goal of increasing deliveries to 720 aircraft this year. Airbus delivered 661 aircraft last year, after lowering its initial target. It handed over 140 jetliners in the first quarter of last year.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
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