|
|
BA DITCHES BOEING JUMBO FOR AIRBUS A380 SUPERJUMBO
British Airways announced a plane order worth $8.2bn at list prices, ending decades of loyalty to Boeing’s 747 jumbo with a switch to Airbus’s new A380 superjumbo.
The order for 12 superjumbos from Airbus and 24 787 Dreamliners from Boeing Co will replace 34 of the airline’s longhaul fleet.
BA Chief Executive Willie Walsh told reporters the airline would use the superjumbo to make best use of its limited take-off slots at London’s crowded Heathrow airport.
He denied the company had experienced political pressure
READ MORE |
|
PROTECTIONISM A NEW CHALLENGE FOR CHINA
As if it wasn’t hard enough already to invest $200bn, the managers of China’s new state asset agency now face an additional headache: growing financial protectionism.
From Germany to Canada and Japan, governments are considering curbing takeovers by sovereign wealth funds like China’s of firms deemed strategically important or vital to national security.
Already convicted in the court of Western public opinion for destroying manufacturing jobs by keeping its currency low, China’s image has been further tarnished lat
READ MORE |
|
CHINESE CITY BUILDS A BRIDGE TO PROSPERITY
The $1.5bn, S-shaped bridge that will link Ningbo and Shanghai is graceful testimony to the huge sums that China is investing in infrastructure to keep raising the potential of the world’s fourth-largest economy.
By cutting the transit time between the two port cities to 2 hours from four, the 36 kilometre (22.5 mile) sea bridge, the world’s longest, will give a further boost to one of the most prosperous corners of China when it opens next June, businessmen and officials say.
“Construction of the bridge will accele
READ MORE |
|
BRITISH ECONOMY GROWS FASTER THAN ANTICIPATED IN LAST QUARTER
Britain’s economy accelerated slightly faster than expected in the second quarter of 2007, boosting expectations that further interest rate rises will be need to curb inflation.
The Office for National Statistics said gross domestic product rose by 0.8 percent in the three months to June, notching up its sixth consecutive quarter of above-average growth.
Analysts had forecast growth of 0.7 percent, the same as the first quarter. Annual growth came in at 3.0 percent, also above the 2.9 percent forecast.
Sterling
READ MORE |
|
EGCD BACKS £1.8BN OF UK EXPORTS IN 2006-07
ECGD, the UK’s official export credit agency, has published its Annual Review and Resource Accounts 2006-07, showing it provided £1.8bn of support to UK exporters and UK investors undertaking business overseas.
The report showed ECGD issued 91 guarantees and insurance policies to support British companies competing in overseas markets, compared to 151 in the previous financial year.
ECGD’s support for Airbus remained a significant part of the Department’s business. In 2006-07, ECGD supported the sale of 58 Airbus ai
READ MORE |
|
UK TECHNOLOGY SUPPORTS
SEARCH FOR LIFE ON MARS
The Martian surface will be photographed at a resolution never before possible, thanks to electronics technology from London’s Imperial University.
In August, NASA’s Phoenix mission, began the search for potential biologically habitable zones on Mars.
The team at Imperial University’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering has provided substrates – surfaces used to hold samples for imaging – for the mission.
These substrates will hold dust and soil for examination in a microscope station attac
READ MORE |
|
TINY COOLING BREEZE
Researchers have demonstrated a new technology using tiny ‘ionic wind engines’ that might dramatically improve computer chip cooling, possibly addressing a looming threat to future advances in computers and electronics. Purdue University researchers, in work funded by Intel, have shown that the technology increased the ‘heat transfer coefficient,’ which describes the cooling rate, by as much as 250 percent. The new technology could help engineers design thinner laptop computers that run cooler than today’s machines.
READ MORE |
|
HOW TO SAVE SCIENCEQ
A ‘golden carrot’ bursary of £1,000 a year should be given to science and engineering undergraduates as part of a five point plan to double the proportion of students taking these subjects, the CBI said recently. Ahead of this summer’s exam results, the UK’s biggest business group warned that urgent action is needed to reverse a decades-long decline in the study of science, technology, engineering and maths (‘STEM’) subjects and meet the needs of a changing UK economy. The CBI proposes action across the schools and un
READ MORE |
|
AIRBLUE EXPANSION
Airblue, Pakistan’s biggest private airline, plans to spend up to $700m over the next five years on new aircraft as it replaces its existing fleet of leased planes. Chief Operating Officer Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said Airblue, which competes with state-run Pakistan International Airlines on several domestic routes, was considering a stock market listing. “We are discussing the option, and it will depend on market conditions as well as appetite,” Abassi said recently.
READ MORE |
|
GM SHRINKS THE SALES GAP BUT TOYOTA IS NUMBER ONE
General Motors Corp. narrowed the gap with top seller Toyota Motor Corp. in the first half of 2007 thanks to a solid second quarter, although demand continued to fall in its home North American market.
Detroit-based GM said on Thursday its global sales in April-June totalled 2.4 million vehicles, up less than 10,000 vehicles from a year earlier. For the first six months, sales rose 1.7 percent to 4.674 million units.
First-half sales were just 42,000 units short of Toyota’s tally of 4.716 million units for the
READ MORE |
|
| |
| Brains and beauty |
Furness and West Cumbria’s West Coast is about to experience a major investment that will strengthen the tourism and industry s ...
|
| National Stadium, Beijing |
At the pinnacle of its construction, the National Stadium in Beijing had 7,000 workers toiling over the infrastructure. ...
|
|
|
No smoke without fire
It seems that commentators, industry heads, central bankers and, dare I say it, Industrial Focus’s own journalists have made so ...
|
Innovation for the nations
Hope for the future has arisen from the turmoil of the last few months, as industrial technologies have spun out some marvels o ...
|
|
|
 |
HIGH
LOW
|
Supposedly the construction
materials of the future, composites are increasingly seen in
applications where optimum efficiency is paramount including
aircraft construction and renewable energy. As two research
examples show in this video, composites really are the future
for efficiency.
|
|
|
|
