Joint venture wins rail project
A joint venture between Australian construction company Barclay Mowlem Rail Group and Teco Electric and Machinery Co (東元電機) secured a NT$3.3 billion contract to build the Tsoying Depot in southern Taiwan for the Taiwan High Speed Rail project, statements from both companies said yesterday.
The Tsoying Depot is expected to carry out routine inspections and service rolling stock for the new high-speed railway link between Taipei and Kaohsiung, which is scheduled to open in 2005.
The joint venture will construct 31 structures on the 40-hectare Tsoying site, including ballasted track rail sidings, rail storage areas and signaling facilities, and large steel-framed portal constructions and workshops.
China Airlines adding flights
China Airlines Co (華航) plans to add flights to Honolulu and Frankfurt to meet an increase in demand as the SARS epidemic subsides.
The carrier will add two flights a week to Honolulu from Taipei starting next Thursday, boosting the number to seven a week, public relations specialist Joseph Wu (武志厚) said. The airlines will also add a fourth weekly flight to Frankfurt starting two days later, he said.
China Airlines' sales fell 13 percent to NT$5.35 billion (US$156 million) last month from a year ago.
Taiwan may pay less for LNG
The state-run Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油) may pay less than US$3 per million British thermal units for liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar, below the average price for the fuel in East Asia, Tex Report's Daily Energy edition said, without saying where it obtained the information.
The price to be paid by Chinese Petroleum for LNG from Qatar's Ras Laffan venture was based on an assumed oil price of US$20 per barrel, Tex said. LNG prices are typically set by a formula that's linked to benchmark oil prices.
Japanese buyers now pay an average US$3.80 per million British thermal units for LNG, based on the same assumed oil price, Tex said.
Chinese Petroleum last week won a NT$298.2 billion (US$8.7 billion) contract to supply the LNG bought from Qatar to Taiwan Power Co (台電) for 25 years starting in 2008.
DoCoMo urges share swap
NTT DoCoMo Inc, Japan's top mobile operator, wants its Taiwanese unit, KG Telecommunications Co (和信電訊), to swap shares with bigger rival Far EasTone Telecom-munications Co (遠傳電信) instead of cash for a merger to avoid losses, a Chinese-language newspaper reported, without citing its sources.
The paper said Far EasTone chairman Douglas Hsu (徐旭東) has a tentative agreement with NTT DoCoMo to swap shares, adding that Far EasTone's offer of NT$12 a share for KG Telecom would lead to losses on NTT DoCoMo's investment in KG Telecom.
Yang to quit bank job
Yang Tze-kaing (楊子江), who has been appointed vice minister of Finance, will quit his presidency at the China Development Industrial Bank (CDIB, 中華開發工銀) to take up his new job next Wednesday, the lender's parent company China Development Financial Holding Co (中華開發金控) said yesterday in a statement.
To replace Yang, the board of China Development Financial yesterday appointed Benny Hu (胡定吾), CDIB's chairman, to double as the bank's president.
NT dollar continues gains
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday continued its strength against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.009 to close at NT$34.341 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$1.054 billion.
RUN IT BACK: A succesful first project working with hyperscalers to design chips encouraged MediaTek to start a second project, aiming to hit stride in 2028 MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it is engaging a second hyperscaler to help design artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators used in data centers following a similar project expected to generate revenue streams soon. The first AI accelerator project is to bring in US$1 billion revenue next year and several billion US dollars more in 2027, MediaTek chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行) told a virtual investor conference yesterday. The second AI accelerator project is expected to contribute to revenue beginning in 2028, Tsai said. MediaTek yesterday raised its revenue forecast for the global AI accelerator used
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
Artificial intelligence (AI) giant Nvidia Corp’s most advanced chips would be reserved for US companies and kept out of China and other countries, US President Donald Trump said. During an interview that aired on Sunday on CBS’ 60 Minutes program and in comments to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said only US customers should have access to the top-end Blackwell chips offered by Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization. “The most advanced, we will not let anybody have them other than the United States,” he told CBS, echoing remarks made earlier to reporters as he returned to Washington
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