Business briefs　

CAL gets new B747 cargo plane
China Airlines Co (華航) said it took delivery of a B747-400 cargo plane, the first of 22 new aircraft it agreed in December to buy from Boeing Co and Airbus SAS for as much as US$3.7 billion.

China Airlines will take delivery of another B747-400 cargo plane next month and a third in December, the company said in a statement.

The airline last year ordered six Boeing 747-400 passenger planes and another four for cargo, as well as 12 Airbus A330-300s, with an option for six more. The carrier last week said the deliveries are on schedule and it will buy as many as 70 engines for the planes, including spares.

Cargo, which makes up about half of the carrier's total revenue, accounted for about 60 percent of sales in May, when the passenger travel slump was at its worst because of SARS. The company said first-half revenue from cargo was about NT$16 billion, 7 percent higher than a year earlier.

Investment urged in Cambodia
The country is expected to benefit substantially from Cambodia's accession to the WTO, said Repre-sentative to the WTO Yen Ching-chang (顏慶章) yesterday.

Yen said Cambodia's pledge to lower tariffs on 110 service, agricultural, forest, fishery and industrial products from Taiwan and to open its service markets will translate into trade opportunities for Taiwanese businesses. Taiwan is Cambodia's largest source of foreign capital.

At the same time, the concessions will also mean that more Taiwanese capital and technology will be drawn to Cambodia, Yen said.

The WTO headquarters held the last working group meeting on Cambodia's accession on Tuesday. Except for the US, all WTO member countries concerned have completed their bilateral talks and signed protocol agreements with Phnom Penh over the past several months, paving the way for Cambodia to become a formal member of the WTO by September.

Nanotechnology lab set up
The semi-official Industrial Tech-nology Research Institute (ITRI) and scores of leading high-tech companies have set up a nanotechnology laboratory, an ITRI spokesman said yesterday.

The partnership, forged in the form of an association, brings together about 30 heavyweight firms as members, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (台積電), United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) and Macronix International Corp (旺宏), with the aim of pooling the wisdom of the academic and the industrial communities to advance nanotechnology and provide a platform for exchanges, the ITRI official said.

Under the terms of the partnership, the association members will assist in providing the necessary facilities and environment for testing, analysis and processing, as well as information exchanges and establishing business alliances to explore the use and applications of nanotechnology and reduce operational and production risks for interested businesses, the ITRI official said.

Mitsubishi wins ship order
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd, Japan's biggest shipbuilder, said it won a contract from Evergreen Group (長榮集團) for 10 container ships that can load as many as 6,724 20-foot containers.

Mitsubishi Heavy plans to deliver the ships, the largest among Evergreen's fleet, between August 2005 and October 2007, it said in a faxed press release. It did not reveal the transaction value.

NT dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded higher against its US counterpart, up NT$0.024 to close at NT$34.417 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$248 million.

Agencies