The Korea Herald

Toyota becomes Asia's biggest firm by market value

May 16, 2013

Toyota has accelerated past South Korea's Samsung Electronics to become Asia's biggest company by market value, after the Japanese automaker's shares doubled in the past year.Toyota's market capitalisation stood at 22.23 trillion yen ($217 billion) on Thursday, beating out the Galaxy smartphone and tablet computer giant which was worth the equivalent of 20.32 trillion yen.Toyota, also the world's biggest automaker, has seen its shares jump on the back of improving financial results. The Corolla
Japanese economy grew at 3.5 percent pace in 1Q

May 16, 2013

Japan's economy grew by a stronger-than-expected 3.5 percent in annual terms in the last quarter, giving Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a boost as his government tackles tough reforms needed to ensure a recovery ends more than two decades of malaise. Stronger consumer spending and public works investment coupled with aggressive monetary easing lent oomph to the recovery that began in the last quarter of 2012, when annual growth was 0.3 percent, according to revised data. The preliminary data for Janu
Apple said to be subject of U.S. Senate offshore tax hearing

May 16, 2013

Apple Inc. will be the subject of a May 21 Senate hearing on U.S. companies’ offshore tax practices, said two people familiar with the inquiry. Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook will testify at the hearing of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, one of the people said. The committee has been examining companies that use various maneuvers to reduce their tax bills, including Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. Apple, based in Cupertino, California, has $40.4 billion in earnings
Obama: Acting tax agency commissioner has resigned

May 16, 2013

President Barack Obama announced the resignation of the top official at the federal tax agency following a controversy over the targeting of conservative political groups for extra scrutiny, moving aggressively to respond to one of several scandals plaguing his administration. Obama, who has been criticized for appearing passive in his response to the tax controversy that erupted last week, declared Wednesday, “I am angry about it” and said the American people had a right to be angry as well.He
Bangladesh garment makers hail safety deal

May 15, 2013

DHAKA (AFP) ― Bangladeshi garment manufacturers on Wednesday hailed an agreement by top retailers to make the country’s factories safer, saying it reflected their long-term commitment to improving working conditions.The retailers made the pledge following one of the world’s worst industrial disasters in which 1,127 people died, most of them female garment workers, when a nine-storey factory complex collapsed outside Dhaka on April 24.Global high street brands including Benetton, Carrefour and Ma
Oil firms raided in EU probe

May 15, 2013

Three of Europe’s biggest oil explorers are among companies being questioned by European antitrust regulators about potential manipulation of prices in the $3.4 trillion-a-year global crude market. Royal Dutch Shell Plc, BP Plc, Statoil ASA and Platts, the oil-price data collector owned by McGraw Hill Financial Inc., said they’re being investigated after the European Commission conducted raids in three countries to ferret out evidence of collusion. Price fixing in energy markets has the potentia
OECD says global economic crisis hits income inequality, warns may get worse

May 15, 2013

PARIS (AFP) ― The global economic crisis worsened income inequality in the world’s leading economies substantially and there is a growing risk that the most vulnerable will be hit harder still, the OECD warned Wednesday.The global economic crisis has “has squeezed incomes from work and capital in most countries,” a report based on the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development’s income distribution database said.It found that income inequality had increased by more over the three-year
EU to shift bill for bank failures to creditors

May 15, 2013

BRUSSELS (AP) ― European Union governments want to shift the cost of rescuing troubled banks from taxpayers to the banks’ creditors ― including the holders of large deposits― as part the region’s plan to shore up its shaky financial system. Finance ministers from the 27-country bloc meeting in Brussels on Tuesday sought to hammer out the new rules on how to fund bank rescues but their discussions showed that they were still far apart from agreeing the technicalities underpinning the project to b
RIM unveils cheaper BlackBerry

May 15, 2013

ORLANDO, Florida (AP) ― Research In Motion unveiled a lower-cost BlackBerry aimed at consumers in emerging markets on Tuesday, stepping up its efforts to regain market share lost to Apple’s iPhone and Android devices powered by Google’s software. The lower-cost gadget, called the Q5, is the company’s third smartphone to run the new BlackBerry 10 system. It will have a physical keyboard, something that sets RIM’s devices apart from Apple’s iPhone and most Android phones. RIM CEO Thorsten Heins sa
Google chief speaks out about vocal cord paralysis

May 15, 2013

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) ― Google co-founder and chief Larry Page ended the mystery about his soft, sometimes raspy voice with a personal online post Tuesday about being diagnosed with partially paralyzed vocal cords.Medical details shared by Page on a public page at the Google+ social network explain the reason behind his puzzling absences from major company events in the last year and his tendency to speak in what seems a hoarse whisper.Page last year also took a break from speaking for medical rea
Bloomberg exec apologizes amid new report of leaks

May 15, 2013

Financial data and news service Bloomberg LP moved to repair damage to its reputation Monday as a published report said that more than 10,000 of its clients' private messages containing sensitive pricing data had been leaked online.The report came the same day Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief Matthew Winkler apologized for the news service's practice of allowing its journalists to access data about how clients used the company's financial data services.Reporters have had access to the data, Winkle
Fitch upgrades Greece's credit rating

May 15, 2013

Debt-hobbled Greece got a new morale boost Tuesday, with Fitch ratings agency upgrading its sovereign credit grade, a day after the country's European creditors backed the release of a new rescue loan payment.However, the one-notch upgrade from CCC to B- still leaves Greece's government debt six levels deep in junk status _ that is, its bonds are not considered investment grade. It has languished in junk territory since 2010, after it admitted to doctoring its deficit reporting and lost access t
Boeing resumes 787 deliveries after 4-month halt

May 15, 2013

Boeing restarted deliveries of 787s on Tuesday after a four-month halt while it dealt with the smoldering batteries that had kept the planes grounded.Boeing handed the plane over to Japan's All Nippon Airways at its factory in Everett, Washington.Airline flights and deliveries were halted in mid-January after two battery incidents. One was a fire on a plane that had just landed minutes earlier, and the second was in-flight smoldering that prompted an emergency landing by an ANA plane.The emergen
U.S. estimates 2013 deficit at $642 billion

May 15, 2013

The budget deficit for the current year is projected to come in well below what was estimated just a few months ago, according to a government study released Tuesday.The Congressional Budget Office cites higher tax revenues and better-than-expected bailout repayments by mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as the key reasons for the improved outlook. The budget office now predicts a 2013 budget deficit of $642 billion, more than $200 billion below its February estimate. This year's shortfa
Audi sales in China exceed BMW, Mercedes on demand for SUVs

May 14, 2013

Volkswagen AG’s Audi posted the fastest pace of sales growth among German luxury marques in China last month after it sold more sport-utility vehicles. Audi deliveries rose 13 percent to 38,710 vehicles in China and Hong Kong in April, the Ingolstadt, Germany-based company said on its website. Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, the world’s largest luxury automaker, reported an 11 percent gain to 30,311 units in China, the automaker said on its website. Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz said sales increased 1