Rule change to help insurers
Reserve requirement rules will be eased to help life insurers suffering from the growing gap between investment returns and the guaranteed yields paid on older policies, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement.
The relaxed rules will include allowing the use of special reserves for claims resulting from major disasters, the statement said. The proposal is open for comment from the public this week, it added.
The government told insurers to cut the promised return on new policies to 2.5 percent starting in January, to better reflect market rates. It also proposes raising the upper limit on overseas investments from 20 percent, to enable insurers to seek higher returns on foreign markets.
President to open 10 Starbucks
President Coffee Corp (統一星巴克) is planning to establish 10 more Starbucks stores in eastern China next year, a company official said yesterday.
"We will add shops in Suzhou and Kunshan next year," said John Hsu (徐光宇), president of President Coffee.
Hsu said the company operates 101 Starbucks stores in Taiwan, 27 stores in Shanghai and three in Hangzhou.
President Coffee is 95 percent held by President Group (統一超商), the nation's largest convenience chain store operator and the remaining 5 percent by the Seattle-based Starbucks Corp.
Tatung denies patent suit
Tatung Co (大同), a maker of personal computers, and its US subsidiary yesterday denied patent infringement filed by the LG.Philips LCD Co, the world's second-largest maker of liquid-crystal displays, in a federal court in Los Angeles, Tatung said in a statement.
"Tatung has carefully reviewed and analyzed the patents and believes that litigation is meritless," the statement said. "Tatung will vigorously defend its global reputation."
LG.Philips filed a suit in early September against Tatung and its subsidiary Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管) for violating six of its technology patents in the US District Court in Los Angeles, California.
Kinmen may impose local taxes
Kinmen Magistrate Lee Chu-feng (李柱峰) said yesterday that the Kinmen County Government may consider levying local taxes as a means of raising funds to improve public sanitation to boost local tourism industry.
Lee made the remarks during a question-and-answer session at the Kinmen County Council yesterday. He said the his office will study the idea of levying an environmental protection tax and a tourism tax.
If Kinmen does impose the taxes, it will be the first local government to do so since the Legislative Yuan passed two law revisions on Nov. 19 to enabling cash-trapped local governments to levy their own taxes.
Quanta Display forecasts loss
Quanta Display Inc (廣明光電), a flat-panel display venture owned by Sharp Corp and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), dumped it 2002 pretax profit forecast for a loss, blaming tumbling prices.
The company now expects a pretax loss of NT$452.4 million (US$13 million) instead of pretax profit of NT$1.7 billion, according to its statement to the stock exchange. The company cut its sales forecast to NT$16.1 billion from NT$18.4 billion.
NT dollar falls
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday continued losing ground against its US counterpart as the yen extended decline. The local unit fell NT$0.050 to close at NT$34.888 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$431 million.
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