COA cuts Chinese corn imports
The Council of Agriculture said it rejected a request from Taiwan's Feedmeal Association to allow more imports of corn from China, which started threatening US$500 million of US sales last year.
Late last year, because of the US port strike, which blocked shipments and drove corn prices higher, Taiwan allowed shipments from China up to Dec. 31. Chinese grain traders sold 70,000 tonnes of corn to Taiwan.
The council advised the state trade bureau that there is no need for further corn shipments from China, said Huang Ying-hao, deputy director of the council's grain trade office.
The end of strikes at US West Coast ports revived shipments from US farmers, Taiwan's sole overseas supplier for nearly three decades.
The Feedmeal Association "asked for our approval to extend the period until the end of March, but it's our opinion that the need for the temporary approval has passed," said Huang.
Park service center opens
The Service Center of the Chunan Science-based Industrial Park (竹南科學園區) in Miaoli hung out its shingle yesterday to provide service to manufacturers stationed in the park.
Nineteen manufacturers are stationed in the park which covers 118 hectares with a total investment of over NT$50 billion.
In order to meet some manu-facturers' desire to expand their factories, the industrial park has acquired from Taiwan Sugar Corp (台糖) 20 more hectares of land that is expected to absorb a total investment of NT$500 billion in the future.
Global PC shipments rise
Global personal-computer shipments rose 2.7 percent last year, rebounding from a decline the previous year, market researcher Gartner Dataquest said.
Shipments totaled 132 million
units compared with a 4 percent slump in 2001, the first decline since 1985, Gartner said. A recovery this year won't be strong because the slump in PC demand still hasn't bottomed, the researcher said.
"There haven't been any obvious signs of a recovery in demand yet," the researcher said in a release.
Hewlett-Packard Co, which had a 16.2 percent market share last year, surpassed Dell Computer Corp to become the largest PC maker, Gartner said. Dell took 15.2 percent, International Business Machines Corp got 6 percent and NEC Corp had 3.4 percent. Toshiba grabbed fifth place with 3.2 percent.
Shipbuilder to finish privatizing
State-owned China Shipbuilding Corp (中船) is scheduled to complete its privatization by the end of this year, China Shipbuilding sources said Thursday.
China Shipbuilding began carrying out a revival plan at the end of 2001 in a bid to improve its operations.
Since then, the company has laid off more than 2,000 employees, cut remaining salaries by an average 35 percent and streamlined its structure in a bid to promote efficiency.
After a difficult year, the corporation has gone from posting losses to making profits.
Faced with a continued slump in the shipbuilding market, China Shipbuilding has set a goal of lowering its production costs by 10 percent this year and is pushing for privatization by the end of the year.
NT dollar loses ground
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday fell against its US counterpart, declining NT$0.017 to close at NT$34.467 on the Taipei foreign-exchange market.
Turnover was US$623 million, compared with the previous day's US$645.5 million.
Agencies
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