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■ Banking
Bank suspends all ATMs
A major Taiwanese bank prevented its all customers from making transactions at automated teller machines yesterday as it investigated a suspected case of fraud. The state-owned Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行) said in a statement that it had received phone calls from customers in the southern city of Tainan Friday evening, saying money had disappeared from their savings accounts at the bank. Six customers had lost a total of more than NT$500,000 (US$15,000), the bank said. "A criminal group must have copied data and manufactured false cards to withdraw cash from the ATMs," Bank of Taiwan official Lu Teh-fu told cable station ETTV. The bank suspended the use of all bank cards and closed down its ATMs just before midnight Friday and expects the disruption to last until this evening, the statement said. The bank said it has 1.7 million cards in circulation.

Taiwan's GDP to grow 3.06%
The nation's top economic planning agency issued a report yesterday forecasting that Taiwan's GDP growth for the year will reach 3.06 percent. According to the report by the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD), Taiwan's economic growth for the first half of the year was slow because of the impacts of the US-led war against Iraq in March and the SARS outbreak in Taiwan between March and June. With the end of the war in Iraq and the containment of SARS, CEPD officials said, Taiwan's economy has visibly turned for the better in the second half of the year, and the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics has adjusted its economic growth forecast for the second half of the year to 4.32 percent and its growth forecast for the year to 3.06 percent. Officials had origin-ally estimated that Taiwan's economic growth would be 2.89 percent for this year.

■ Construction
Singapore nets Asian deals
Singapore contractors bagged S$805 million (US$468 million) in overseas deals last year, with the bulk in China and Southeast Asia, official figures showed yesterday. The value was 2.3 percent higher than the amount secured by contractors in 2001 and more than double the value in 2000, according to the Building and Construction Authority (BCA). City-state contractors won more than 270 deals in 27 countries. Construction exports to China soared more than four times compared to 2001 and accounted for more than 50 percent of the total value of all overseas projects, said BCA chairman John Lim. Three-quarters of the overseas contracts were associated with building developments, while the rest were linked to infrastructure, he said.

■ Economic policy
S Korea vows to keep trying
The South Korean government vowed yesterday to continue its efforts to stimulate the national economy despite a leadership crisis surrounding President Roh Moo-hyun. "The economic ministries will keep striving to revive the economy, as we have done so far," Finance and Economy Ministry spokesman Kim Sung-jin said. Kim declined comment on how the leadership crisis may affect the economy. The pledge came after Roh rejected offers from his Cabinet and aides to resign amid the crisis, but left open the possibility that he could quit if he determines that he no longer has the public's trust. The turmoil follows months of increasing criticism of Roh, whose blunt style and perceived inconsistency on major policy issues have alienated many South Koreans.

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