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Cellphone use tops charts
Taiwan ranked first in the world last year in terms of the ratio of cellular-phone owners to the overall population, topping the global list for the second year in a row, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday.

Quoting International Telecommunications Union statistics, the ministry said the country topped the list with a ratio of 106.1 users for every 100 citizens, followed by Luxembourg at 101.3 users per 100 citizens and Israel's 95.5 users per 100 citizens.

The ministry said this indicates that Taiwan's telecommunications "digitalization" has gained a competitive advantage in the world and shows that its telecommunications liberalization has born fruit.

The ministry also said that cellular phone use has continued to grow through the first six months of this year, reaching 25.11 million owners as of June, indicating the universality of mobile phone use in the country.

China Steel to help sell shares
China Steel Corp (中鋼) said it will help the government sell as much as 1.2 billion of shares worth NT$32.5 billion (US$950 million) at the current market price to overseas investors.

The size of the stake, announced in a Taiwan Stock Exchange statement yesterday, is bigger than the 970 million shares the government set aside earlier for the sale abroad.

The government wants to sell shares overseas as part of a plan to reduce the state's holding. The Ministry of Economic Affairs owns about 36 percent of the company after selling 337 million shares in a domestic auction earlier this month.

Bank to sell US$300m in bonds
Cosmos Bank Taiwan (萬泰銀行) said it plans to sell about $300 million worth of bonds backed by assets. HVB Group and UBS AG will manage the sale.

The lender may sell the asset-backed securities to local and overseas investors by the end of the year, Cosmos Bank said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The Ministry of Finance has yet to approve the sale. It did not give other details.

Cosmos wants to raise the profile of its so-called "George & Mary" cash-advance card, improve the bank's finances, increase liquidity and diversify risks, it said.

The cardholders, who get to borrow small sums, don't have to provide collateral, guarantors, application fees, credit insurance fees or annual fees when applying for the card.

The Financial Asset Securitization Law (金融資產證券化法) was passed last year, allowing the repackaging of assets such as residential mortgages, car loans and credit-card receivables.

No Chinatrust bid for HK bank
Chinatrust Financial Holding Ltd (中信金控), the financial arm of the Koo family, said it hasn't bid to buy International Bank of Asia, a Hong Kong lender 55 percent-owned by Arab Banking Corp.

"I can only comment from Chinatrust Financial's position that we didn't bid for International Bank of Asia," said the company's chief strategic officer, Lin Shiaw-pin (林孝平).

The denial came after a Hong Kong Economic Times article that said the Koo family is offering HK$4.7 billion (US$603 million) for International Bank of Asia.

International Bank said in a statement to the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong yesterday that Arab Banking "is still in discussions with at least one party in relation to the possibility of disposing of its 55 percent stake."

NT dollar trades lower
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded lower against its US counterpart, dropping NT$0.001 to close at NT$34.210 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turn-over was US$488 million.

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