BANIKING
ADB shares climate program
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) announced a new program aimed at financing efforts to counter climate change, stepping up its attempt to back one of its main focuses in the region. The Innovative Finance Facility for Climate Change in Asia and the Pacific (IF-CAP) could create up to US$15 billion in new loans, through a goal of US$3 billion in guarantees, ADB President Masatsugu Asakawa told a news conference in Incheon, South Korea. “The region needs trillions in investment to combat climate change,” Asakawa said. “To help reach that level, we need to maximize our capital in new ways — the IF-CAP will multiply ADB’s lending capacity through leverage,” making it possible to take climate action across sectors and regions, he said.Partner countries including the US and Japan would guarantee a portfolio of ADB’s sovereign loans, helping shoulder some of the losses in case of a credit event in one of its borrowers, the bank said.
ENERGY
BP profits after record loss
British energy giant BP PLC yesterday posted net profit of US$8.2 billion for the first quarter, compared with a record loss a year earlier as it ended operations in Russia. In the first three months of this year, BP recorded its biggest quarterly loss after tax, at US$20.4 billion, as Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine caused its exit from Russian business. A year ago, BP had booked a pre-tax charge of $25.5 billion after abandoning its 19.75 percent stake in energy group Rosneft PJSC, ending more than three decades of investment in Russia. BP CEO Bernard Looney called this year’s first-quarter performance “strong” as the group focuses “on safe and reliable operations.” The company added that it would return US$1.75 billion to shareholders.
AVIATION
JAL recovers from pandemic
Japan Airlines Co (JAL) yesterday logged an annual net profit for the first time in three years, buoyed by soaring domestic and international demand for travel after COVID-19 restrictions were eased. The carrier, Japan’s second-largest by market share, said that net profit for the year to March was ￥34.4 billion (US$250.4 million) — a turnaround from a net loss of ￥177 billion in the previous financial year. “Air passenger demand recovered steadily as the shift toward balancing the COVID-19 pandemic’s prevention and socioeconomic activities gained momentum,” a company statement said. Japan Airlines said that its return to profitability was in part because of “comprehensive cost-cutting efforts and maximizing sales in the cargo business domain.” Last week, rival ANA Holdings Inc reported profitability for the first time in three years, logging a full-year net profit of ￥89 billion.
BANKING
Morgan Stanley to cut staff
Morgan Stanley is planning to cut more jobs after reporting a decline in profit during the first three months of the year, US media reported on Monday. The bank aims to trim its headcount by nearly 4 percent this quarter after ending March with more than 82,000 employees, the reports said. The US investment and financial services giant said in a recent earnings report that its profit dropped 20 percent in the first three months of this year amid a slowdown in mergers and acquisition advising. The global financial institution at the end of last year trimmed about 2 percent of its staff or about 1,600 positions, CNBC reported at the time. Morgan Stanley’s next round of cuts is expected to involve about 3,000 jobs.
‘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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