Staff writer, with CNAForeign direct investment (FDI) approved by the government last year fell from a year earlier, but still hit the fourth-highest level on record because of investments in the local semiconductor and renewable energy sectors, the Investment Commission said yesterday. Approved FDI was US$11.20 billion, down 2.14 percent year-on-year because of a high comparison base, the commission said. However, it was the fourth-highest amount since FDI was first recorded in 1953, trailing only US$15.3 billion in 2007, US$13.9 billion in 2006 and US$11.4 billion in 2018. Despite the year-on-year decrease, the number of approved applications rose 13.73 percent from a year earlier to 4,118, commission data showed. Approved FDI from China was down 57.97 percent year-on-year to US$97.18 million, but the number of applications approved by the commission were up 1.42 percent year-on-year to 143.

The outbreak comes as China enters its busiest travel period, when millions board trains and airplanes for the Lunar New Year holiday. Five people in Beijing and 14 in Guangdong Province have also been diagnosed with the new coronavirus, CCTV reported last night. Authorities in Thailand and in Japan have already identified at least three cases, all involving recent travel from China. Many of the initial cases of the coronavirus were linked to a seafood market in Wuhan, which was closed as authorities investigated. “The recent outbreak of novel coronavirus pneumonia in Wuhan and other places must be taken seriously,” Xi said, according to CCTV.

By Lee I-chia / Staff reporterTaiwan cannot be defined by anyone but Taiwanese, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) told reporters in Finland on Sunday. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Sunday separately rebutted the statement, saying that Taiwan is not part of the PRC. “I think it is very strange, because why would we need Myanmar to define who Taiwan is,” said Ko, who is chairman of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). “We do not need other people to define what Taiwan is, because only we can define who we are,” Ko said. “However, Taiwan has always faced a difficult international situation,” he said.

Staff writer, with CNAA forest fire on Sunday broke out in the mountainous area of Lishan (梨山) in Taichung, destroying three hectares of forest, the Dongshih Forest District Office said. While the fire was contained at 4pm yesterday, it was still being put out as of press time last night, the office said. The office said that after its Lishan work station received a report of the fire at 8am, 12 firefighters were sent to the affected Chiayang (佳陽) forest area and a request was made for aerial support. The firefighters on the ground battled because the steep cliffs in the area limited access to water supplies, the office said. From October to April, the area is vulnerable to wildfires, due strong winds and dry weather, the office said.

Reuters, PARISUS bank JPMorgan Chase & Co said it plans to buy a building in central Paris to house up to 450 staff in coming years, as it relocates some services from London after Britain’s exit from the EU. The expansion is expected to make the French capital, where it currently has 260 staff, its second-largest base in Europe behind London, which has 10,000 staff, JPMorgan said. The bank is to initially transfer sales teams, followed by trading staff, depending on the timing of Britain’s full withdrawal from the EU, JPMorgan France chief executive officer Kyril Courboin said. “Paris is going to be the second pole for our market activities in Europe,” he said. The building purchase was announced on Sunday as part of the “Choose France” drive, an annual event created by French President Emmanuel Macron.

Iraq on Sunday temporarily stopped output at an oil field, with supply from a second site threatened as unrest escalates in OPEC’s second-biggest producer. In Libya, the country’s oil production almost ground to a halt after armed forces shut down a pipeline, halting output from the nation’s biggest field. The double-whammy of disruptions in two key producers has jolted focus back to supply risks as oil markets continue their dramatic start to the year. Libya’s oil production will be limited to 72,000 barrels per day once its storage tanks are full, state-run National Oil Corp (NOC) said, down from more than 1.2 million barrels per day on Saturday. The company declared force majeure, which can allow Libya — home to Africa’s largest-proven oil reserves — to legally suspend delivery contracts.

BloombergNomura Holdings Inc plans to hire dozens of private bankers in Hong Kong and Singapore in a bid to extend its wealth management push from Japan and China to the rest of Asia. “Asia has bigger potential for future growth compared to Japan,” Hibino said in an interview in Singapore. Nomura started hiring for the Asia wealth business last year with 10 net additions, Hibino said. Nomura, focused on serving clients worth more than US$20 million, currently manages about US$10 billion in Asia excluding Japan. Outside of Japan, its Asia wealth operation is currently concentrated in Hong Kong and Singapore.

AFP, DAVOS, SwitzerlandThe world’s billionaires have doubled in the past decade and are richer than 60 percent of the global population, the UK-based charity Oxfam said yesterday. “Our broken economies are lining the pockets of billionaires and big business at the expense of ordinary men and women. No wonder people are starting to question whether billionaires should even exist,” Oxfam India head Amitabh Behar said. Oxfam’s figures are based on data from Forbes magazine and Swiss bank Credit Suisse Group AG’s Global Wealth report, but they are disputed by some economists. “Across the globe, 42 percent of women cannot get jobs because they are responsible for all the caregiving, compared to just 6 percent of men,” the Oxfam report said.

By Lee Hsin-fang and Wu Liang-yi / Staff reportersThe government’s food policy is based on protecting people’s health, international standards and scientific evidence, a Presidential Office official said on Sunday. The official, who declined to be named, made the remarks in response to media queries about requests by Washington and Tokyo that Taiwan lift bans on some foods. Allowing imports of US pork and beef is a significant issue that requires professional evaluation and a clear answer would not be available in the short term, the Presidential Office official said. Taiwan and the US can still promote economic cooperation without deciding on the beef and pork issue, the official said. Japan-Republic of China Diet Members’ Consultative Council Chairman Keiji Furuya broached the issue at a meeting with Tsai at the Presidential Office in Taipei on Friday last week.

BloombergThe Thai baht was Asia’s best-performing currency last year, while this year’s winner looks to have been already decided: the Indonesian rupiah. If they are brave enough to execute the trades without hedging the currencies, investors stand to reap even greater rewards if the rupiah keeps rising. Indonesian President Joko Widodo last week said that rapid gains in the currency could hurt exports and undermine efforts to rein in the nation’s current-account deficit. ‘PHASE ONE’ DEALPart of the “phase one” trade deal signed last week in Washington includes commitments by both nations to avoid competitive currency devaluations. While the two-page currency chapter was met with skepticism, Gave said that the signals out of China are that it is content with a stronger currency.

The restored building “testifies to a period when Islam and Judaism had an exceptional closeness, complicity and intimacy,” said Andre Azoulay, an adviser to Moroccan King Mohammed VI. Azoulay, himself a member of Essaouira’s Jewish community, launched the project in partnership with the Moroccan Ministry of Culture. The Jewish community has been in Morocco since antiquity and grew over the centuries, particularly with the arrival of Jews expelled from Spain by the Catholic kings after 1492. Since 1997, Casablanca has housed a Moroccan Jewish Museum, the only one of its kind in the Arab world. And in Fez, the country’s spiritual capital, a museum dedicated to the Jewish memory is under construction.

BloombergSamsung Electronics Co has appointed Roh Tae-moon the head of its smartphone division, tasking a veteran executive with oversight of the world’s largest mobile devices business. Roh, a two-decade veteran of Samsung, is regarded internally as an engineering maven who is meticulous about phone features. Its devices accounted for 54 percent of the global 5G smartphone market as of November last year, after it shipped more than 6.7 million Galaxy 5G smartphones last year, the company has said. Separately, Huawei last week said that it shipped more than 6.9 million 5G phones last year. Away from smartphones, the chiefs of three key Samsung divisions — semiconductors, consumer appliances and electronics and IT services — remained the same.

By Ryan Gallagher / BloombergAfter successfully creating a healthcare app for doctors to view medical records, Diego Fasano, an Italian entrepreneur, got some well-timed advice from a police officer friend: Go into the surveillance business, because law enforcement desperately needs technological help. The app would also allow Fasano’s company, eSurv, to give law enforcement access to a device’s microphone, camera, stored files and encrypted messages. Fasano christened the spyware “Exodus.”“I started to go to all the Italian prosecutors’ offices to sell it,” said Fasano, a 46-year-old with short, dark-brown hair and graying stubble. In Rome, Naples, Milan.”Even the country’s foreign intelligence agency, L’Agenzia Informazioni e Sicurezza Esterna, came calling for Exodus’ services, Fasano said. Both companies have said they sell their equipment to law enforcement and intelligence agencies to fight crime and terrorism.

Taiwan last week wrapped up the first of its 5G spectrum auctions with bids totaling NT$138.08 billion (US$4.61 billion), making it the third-most expensive 5G spectrum in the world after Italy (US$5 billion) and Germany (US$4.7 billion). However, the telecoms’ executives have voiced concern that expensive 5G bandwidth outlays might have an adverse effect on 5G adoption. Taiwanese would not benefit from 5G services if subscription rates begin at NT$2,000 per month. These factors are likely to stall the adoption of 5G technology and prolong the recovery period for telecoms. This reduced 5G network deployment costs for telecoms and accelerated the uptake of 5G technology in the US.

By Lin Hui-chin and Dennis Xie / Staff reporter, with staff writerAn unhealthy diet composed of mostly high-sugar or deep-fried foods could triple the risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a US study has suggested. “A threefold higher incidence of late AMD was observed among participants with a Western pattern score above, as compared with below, the median,” the study said. The study, conducted by a research team from the State University of New York, identified “Western” (unhealthy) and “prudent” (healthy) dietary patterns after examining the lifestyles and medical records of 15,000 participants. A “Western” diet is characterized by more consumption of red meat, deep-fried food, desserts, eggs, refined grains, high-fat dairy products and sweetened beverages, whereas a “prudent” diet is not, it said. Although no significant associations were observed between either dietary pattern and early AMD, a “Western” pattern could triple the risk of late AMD, it said, adding that balanced nutrition could improve people’s immune systems and reduce the risk of oxidizing reactions caused by retinal inflammation.