■ China to impose steel tariffs
China will impose anti-dumping duties on cold-rolled steel imports from Russia, South Korea and three other economies from tomorrow.
The tariffs, which also apply to Taiwan, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, are retroactive to September 2003 and will last for five years, the Ministry of Commerce said on its Web site. It didn't give the size of the duties.
China Steel Corp (中鋼), Taiwan's largest steelmaker, will face levies of 24 percent, according to a schedule posted on the ministry's Web site, restricting its ability to benefit from expanding steel demand in the world's fastest-growing economy.
China, which consumes about a quarter of the world's steel, said in September it would refrain from imposing penalties after reducing its estimate of damage caused by the imports.
The ministry began investigating in March 2002 after Baoshan Iron & Steel Co (寶鋼) and other domestic producers complained overseas steelmakers were selling products at below cost. Cold-rolled steel is used to make auto frames and home appliances.
■ Motorola quiet on phone deal
Motorola Inc declined to confirm a DigiTimes Web site report that it will purchase US$84 billion of handsets from Taiwanese suppliers in three years.
"This dollar figure has been extrapolated from figures we reported on the past two years of procurement in Taiwan," Motorola spokeswoman Mary Lamb said, without giving earlier procurement figures. "The three-year forecast, which we did not provide, is assuming market conditions and demand remain high."
The world's second-largest mobile-phone maker is the biggest buyer of Taiwanese handsets.
The company is supplied by Chi Mei Communication Systems Inc (奇美通訊), BenQ Corp (明基電通) and Compal Communications Inc (華寶通訊), the report said, citing Motorola vice president Eugene Delaney.
■ Firm halts spot-market sales
Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體), Taiwan's third-largest maker of computer-memory chips, said it halted spot-market sales of chips yesterday on expectations prices will rise.
"We are optimistic about next week's prices," Powerchip spokesman Eric Tang (譚仲民) said, responding to a Chinese-language newspaper report that said Powerchip, South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co and Hynix Semiconductor Inc had halted sales.
Tang said he wasn't sure if Powerchip is selling on the spot market today and he had no knowledge of whether Samsung or Hynix had stopped selling.
Samsung is the world's largest memory chipmaker and Hynix is the third largest. The spot price of the 256-megabit, 333-megahertz double-data-rate dynamic random access memory chip has increased from a 12-month low of US$3.69 on Jan. 5.
■ Spanish mission visits park
A Spanish trade mission, led by Felipe Romera Lubias, chief of Andalusia Science Park, visited Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park (新竹科學園區) yesterday.
The trade mission is composed of representatives from the Andalusia autonomous government and 15 large companies, including Thomson Telecom Espana, Acisa Corp, Hardareste Co, and Normalizacion Europa Corp.
The Spanish visitors met with their Taiwanese counterparts in a seminar on trade and investment opportunities in Spain.
■ NT dollar loses ground
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday turned weak against its US counterpart, declining NT$0.001 to close at NT$33.718 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
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