TPT November 2010

G lobal M arketplace detractors of wind turbines who claim they are an ugly blight on the landscape.” (“Wind Lens Floating Farms Could Triple Electricity Production,” 26 July) › As noted by Celsias.com, a site for information on climate change, the biggest deterrent to development of wind power in Japan has been that the electricity grid – a network of some ten utility companies – is not fully connected. To ensure steady supply, a spokesman for Tohoku Electric Power Co told Celsias that, as of 2008, Japan’s fourth-biggest generator requires owners of new windmills to store energy in batteries before distribution, rather than send the electricity direct to the utility. Automotive A strong yen vis-à-vis the euro gives German firms an advantage over their Japanese competitors Writing from Frankfurt in the International Herald Tribune , Jack Ewing noted “a touch of schadenfreude” in the most recent earnings report issued by Kuka, a company based in the Bavarian city of Augsburg whose orange industrial robots are a familiar presence on auto assembly lines worldwide. “Kuka said [in August] that its sales had bounced back to pre-crisis levels – and then some,” Mr Ewing wrote. “By contrast, sales at its Japanese rivals were still one- third below where they had stood in early 2008, before the global downturn slammed the machinery industry.” True, Kuka’s rebound has been helped by an upswing in orders from European car makers. And China’s heavy investment in infrastructure benefited companies like Germany’s Siemens. But a significant factor is the plunge in the value of the euro as compared with the Japanese yen, which handed Kuka a new pricing edge over its competitors in Japan. (“Strong Yen Helps to Fuel Germany’s Export Boom,” 2 September) “Price is not the sole criterion, but it’s an important one,” Kuka’s chief executive, Till Reuter, told the Tribune . “The weaker euro is to our advantage.” The official currency of 16 of the 27 member states of the European Union had fallen 19% against the yen in the year through August,

nearly double its decline against the US dollar. And the euro was down more than 36% against the yen since August 2008. This strengthening of the yen has favoured a number of Germany’s exporters. “A stronger yen is good news for German machinery and auto companies whose main competitors often are based in Japan,” Mr Ewing wrote. “And it is, of course, bad news in Japan, where the strong currency has become a political issue.” As in so many national rivalries, China – the fastest-growing market for many German companies – is the main battleground. According to the Munich-based Ifo Institute for Economic Research, China was the destination for 5% of German auto exports in 2009, up from 0.6% in 2000; and 9.1% of German machinery exports went to China, up from 2.7% over the near-decade. In fact, according to the German Engineering Federation, an industry group consulted by the Tribune , German companies gained ground in China in 2009, increasing their share of that country’s imports to 22.9% from 20.6%. Japan’s share of Chinese imports slipped to 24.1% from 27% over the year. › Mr Ewing observed an inclination on the part of German company representatives to de-emphasise the importance of exchange rates, preferring instead to discuss the superiority of their strategies and products. A spokesman for Volkswagen said that the car maker had been taking market share from Toyota because of the quality of its offerings, not on account of any shift in the value of the yen. And – to revisit the robot theme with which we began – ABB, a Swiss company whose products include industrial robots made in Germany and elsewhere, told the International Herald Tribune that it had not noticed any yen effect. Trade Europe steals a march on the US by ratifying a sweeping free-trade agreement with South Korea The European Union said 16 September that it would sign its first pact with an Asian trade partner: South Korea. The deal was set to be signed at a meeting of the EU and South Korea to be held in October in Brussels, Steven Vanackere told a news conference there. Mr Vanackere is the deputy prime minister and foreign

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