President Lee Teng-hui (
Heinrich von Pierer, chairman of Germany's Siemens AG, is in Taiwan trying to reverse the Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corporation's (THSRC, 台灣高鐵) decision to give the priority negotiating rights to the Japanese Shinkansen group.
Pierer lobbied Lee a day after Eurotrain announced that it has asked a Taipei court for an injunction to suspend the rail talks.
But Lee told Pierer the competitive bidding was a matter between businesses and he could not get involved, the Presidential Office said in a statement.
Eurotrain has been vying for the railway since 1997. The 345-kilometer system would link the cities of Taipei and Kaohsiung.
Despite lengthy negotiations with Eurotrain, the THSRC awarded priority negotiating rights to the Japanese group on Dec. 28.
There had been rumors that THSRC favored Shinkansen over Eurotrain because the Taiwan government wants to forge closer ties with Japan, but THSRC had denied there were political factors.
However, Eurotrain said it has a binding agreement with THSRC and the Taiwanese company violated that agreement by talking to the Japanese.
Eurotrain wants to provide the main hardware for the rail system, estimated to cost NT$430 billion (US$13.5 billion).
THSRC had reacted strongly to Eurotrain's legal action and vowed to continue negotiations with the Shinkansen group.
Edward Lin (
The Shinkansen group is led by Mistui & Company and comprises Mitsubishi, Marubeni, Sumitomo, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Toshiba, and Kawasaki Heavy Industries.
Construction of the high-speed rail system is set to start next spring and is scheduled to make its first run Oct. 31, 2005.
In related news, THSRC has hired Bank of America Corp to advise the company in its international negotiations to buy railway equipment.
The biggest US bank will assist the company in negotiations for the purchase of trains and control systems for the rail construction project.
Sweeping policy changes under US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr are having a chilling effect on vaccine makers as anti-vaccine rhetoric has turned into concrete changes in inoculation schedules and recommendations, investors and executives said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has in the past year upended vaccine recommendations, with the country last month ending its longstanding guidance that all children receive inoculations against flu, hepatitis A and other diseases. The unprecedented changes have led to diminished vaccine usage, hurt the investment case for some biotechs, and created a drag that would likely dent revenues and
Global semiconductor stocks advanced yesterday, as comments by Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) at Davos, Switzerland, helped reinforce investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). Samsung Electronics Co gained as much as 5 percent to an all-time high, helping drive South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI above 5,000 for the first time. That came after the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 3 percent to a fresh record on Wednesday, with a boost from Nvidia. The gains came amid broad risk-on trade after US President Donald Trump withdrew his threat of tariffs on some European nations over backing for Greenland. Huang further
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) shares yesterday notched their best two-day rally on record, as investors flock to the Taiwanese chip designer on excitement over its tie-up with Google. The Taipei-listed stock jumped 8.59 percent, capping a two-session surge of 19 percent and closing at a fresh all-time high of NT$1,770. That extended a two-month rally on growing awareness of MediaTek’s work on Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs), which are chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications. It also highlights how fund managers faced with single-stock limits on their holding of market titan Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are diversifying into other AI-related firms.
RSS