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Paraguay beef still banned
New Council of Agriculture Chair-man Lee Chin-lung (李金龍) yesterday said Paraguayan beef imports are still banned because the nation remains a foot-and-mouth disease-infected (FMD) country. Imports of Paraguayan beef have been banned since Nov. 4 due to reports of the disease there.

Lee said several livestock experts have been sent to Paraguay to investigate the situation, but the government still concerned about the epidemic.

A 1997 FMD epidemic in Taiwan caused heavy losses to the pork industry with more than half of the nation's estimated 7 million pigs slaughtered.

Taiwan remains an internationally-recognized foot-and-mouth epidemic area, but there has not been a single case of the disease reported in the past 21 months, said Lee.

Lee was formerly the director of the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine.

Flat-panel makers boost output
Domestic makers of flat-panel displays used in personal computers expect to return to full production capacity this month as lower prices strengthen demand, a local Chinese-language newspaper reported, citing company officials.

AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美光電) and Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管), which make 15-inch and 17-inch screens used in notebook computers and desktop monitors, expect capacity use to rebound to about 100 percent from an average of 80 percent in October, the newspaper said.

AU Optronics has eliminated most of its inventory on the expectation that prices of materials and production costs will continue to fall, the report said, citing company vice president Hsiung Hui (熊暉).

Investment seminar opens
More than 500 overseas Chinese businessmen from 37 countries are attending a five-day meeting on trade opportunities and business cooperation that opened yesterday at the Taipei International Con-vention Center.

The bi-annual conference, spon-sored by the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission and organized by the China External Trade Development Council (CETRA), will present three keynote speeches, beginning today, by Wu Rong-i (吳榮義), director of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research; Ho Mei-yueh (何美玥), vice chairman of the Council for Economic Planning and Development; and Vice Economics Minister Shih Yen-hsiang (施顏祥).

Between 1952 and 2001, overseas Chinese invested US$3.857 billion in 2,768 projects, but the amount of overseas Chinese investment has declined in recent years, CETRA's Secretary-General Chao Yung-chuan (趙永全) said.

China Petroleum cancels tender
Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油) said it has canceled a tender to buy as much as 2 million barrels of crude oil from the Middle East, Russia and Africa for January loading because offers received were at too high a price.

Of the four offers received, the grade of crude oil was also of poor quality, a company official said.

The refiner on Nov. 25 sought 500,000 to 2 million barrels of Oman, Basrah Light, Masila, Arabian Medium, Urals, Mandji and Ceiba grade crude oil. These grades, known as sour crude oil, have 0.5 percent or more sulfur by weight.

Chinese Petroleum issued a tender a day later to buy crude oil from West Africa and Asia for loading in January but it has yet to be awarded, the company said.

NT$ falls on back of weak yen
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday fell against its US counterpart on the back of weak yen. The local unit dropped NT$0.026 to close at NT$34.838 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$364 million, compared with last Friday's US$320 million.
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