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Quanta seeks Legend deal

Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦) said it may make mobile phones for Legend Group Ltd (聯想集團), China's biggest personal computer seller, which had a fiscal first-quarter loss at its unit that makes handsets.

"Quanta is in talks with Legend" on the cellphone order, Quanta Computer chief financial officer Tim Li (李杜榮) said, confirming an earlier Chinese-language newspaper report.

He declined to elaborate.

The Legend order would help Taiwan-based Quanta Computer meet its target of shipping 1 million phones a month from December, the Chinese-language newspaper report said.

Quanta, the world's largest notebook computer maker by volume, said last month it will shift about three-quarters of its laptop production to China this year to help cut costs.

China investment up

Taiwanese investments in China increased 16 percent to NT$92.6 billion (US$2.74 billion) in the first eight months of this year from the same period last year, the government said yesterday.

However, investments in August fell 54 percent year-on-year to NT$6.6 billion (US$195 million) as most companies had already rushed back into China in July after SARS was brought under control, according to the monthly report by the Ministry of Economic Affairs' Investment Commission.

Investment increased by 75 percent in July, the report said.

Insurance crime prevention

The Ministry of Finance yesterday announced its plan to set up a semi-official insurance crime prevention center (保險犯罪防制中心) in November with a start-up fund of NT$40 million.

Chiang Chao-kuo (江朝國) is designated by the ministry to head the government's proposed insurance institute, which will have a nine-member board, according to a press statement yesterday.

The to-be-established center is designed to reinforce the government's efforts in cracking down insurance crimes with half of the NT$40 million fund is a donation from insurance associations in the private sector.

FPG undecided on steel plan

Formosa Plastics Group (台塑) chairman Wang Yung-ching (王永慶) said yesterday he has yet to decide whether to build an integrated steel mill in Zhangzhou of Fujian Province at a cost of US$10 billion.

Wang said he did visit Zhangzhou, where the company has invested in a big thermal power plant, and the nearby Gulei Peninsula in Fujian during his just-concluded market inspection tour of China, which also took him to Beijing and several other mainland cities.

"The Zhangzhou visit was mainly aimed at looking into the city's general business environment," Wang explained, adding that it's still premature to say that he is determined to set up a steel plant there as some press reports claimed.

Maersk renews contract

Denmark's container shipper A.P. Moller Maersk Group renewed a lease for two terminals in Kaohsiung Harbor for another five years during a ceremony in Kaohsiung Harbor yesterday.

The lease gave a much-needed shot in the arm to Kaohsiung Harbor, which has seen Shanghai replaced it as the world's fourth-largest container port last year.

As one of the world's leading container shippers, Moller Maersk leases four terminals in Kaohsiung.

Contracts for two of them will fall due on Oct. 18.

The shipping company was reportedly mulling to withdraw from Taiwan due to concerns that the island is losing its competitiveness because of its lack of direct shipping links with China.

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