TAIPEI -- The biggest U.S. engineering and construction company expects at least $10 billion in business opportunities in Taiwan over the next decade as the island makes an aggressive push to cut back on coal and reduce emissions along its globally vital tech supply chain.

Bechtel also intends to capture demand from other Asian economies looking to transition away from coal and into liquid natural gas and renewables, Richard W. Freer, the company's president for the Asia-Pacific region, told Nikkei Asia in an interview.

TOKYO -- Yukio Edano, head of Japan's Constitutional Democratic Party, announced on Tuesday plans to step down following his party's defeat in Sunday's lower house election.

The CDP had mobilized a largely united opposition front, resulting in heated races in many districts but ultimately failing to oust Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

In all, the CDP won only 96 seats on Sunday, less than the 110 it had before the election. The LDP, however, secured

MANILA -- Mynt, the Philippine fintech backed by Jack Ma, on Tuesday said it had raised over $300 million from new and existing investors in its largest-ever fundraising, valuing the company at over $2 billion.

New investors U.S. fund Warburg Pincus and venture capital firm Insight Partners led the third funding round for Mynt, which owns the hugely popular GCash mobile wallet. The move underscores the company's position as the Philippines' lone unicorn, defined as a tech startup valued at

BANGKOK -- Great Wall Motors has begun selling electric vehicles in Thailand, the Chinese automaker said Monday, entering its first overseas market for EVs at a price below most of the local competition.

The Ora Good Cat subcompact starts at 989,000 baht ($29,800), on par with the lowest-cost electric sold in Thailand by MG Motor, the British brand owned by Shanghai-based SAIC Motor. The Good Cat also is 30% less expensive than the

TAIPEI -- Apple has cut back sharply on iPad production to allocate more components to the iPhone 13, multiple sources told Nikkei Asia, a sign the global chip supply crunch is hitting the company even harder than it previously indicated.

Production of the iPad was down 50% from Apple's original plans for the past two months, sources briefed on the matter said, adding that parts intended for older iPhones were also being moved to the iPhone 13.

The iPad and iPhone models have a number of components

JAKARTA -- Ride-hailing company Gojek and Taiwan's Gogoro, a leading battery-swapping electric scooter maker, will launch a pilot program to test scooters with swappable batteries in Indonesia's capital, both companies announced on Tuesday.

The announcement comes on the back of an April pledge by Indonesia's Gojek to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2030.

The pilot program will begin in the next few months, initially in South Jakarta, with 250 Gogoro scooters and four battery-

Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a written statement to the United Nations COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, on Monday. The following is his statement as published by Xinhua News Agency.

Honorable Prime Minister Boris Johnson,

Colleagues,

It gives me great pleasure to attend the World Leaders Summit and discuss ways to address the climate challenge. As we speak, the adverse impacts of climate change have become increasingly evident, presenting a growing urgency for global action. How to respond to climate change and revive the world economy are

NEW YORK -- The solid win by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's coalition in the general election Sunday has been welcomed in Washington as a sign of continuity. But focus is quickly shifting to the size of Japan's defense budget, which the ruling Liberal Democratic Party has vowed to increase.

As U.S. President Joe Biden struggles to fund his domestic agenda, hope is growing that such allies as Japan can significantly raise their defense spending to better share the burden.

But the gap between the hopes in Washington

TOKYO -- Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida intends to replace his ruling party's second-most-powerful official, Secretary-General Akira Amari, after the latter lost his single-seat district in Sunday's general election and offered his resignation.

It is rare for a party secretary-general, who is in charge of election campaigning, to quit the day after a vote -- especially one in which the party won an outright majority. The switch is an awkward distraction for Kishida, who is preparing to