■ Hon Hai may sell shares in HK
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) will consider a plan to combine holdings in 15 mobile-phone related companies for a Hong Kong listing, a Chinese-language newspaper said, citing company spokesman Edmund Ding (丁祈安).
The plan would allow Hon Hai employees to take a stake in one of the company's most profitable businesses, where sales last year reached about NT$30 billion (US$890 million), the report said, without giving comparative figures.
Hon Hai expects to make about 30 million handsets this year and become the nation's largest mobile-phone manufacturer, the paper said.
Hon Hai's total sales last year rose by 34 percent to NT$327.8 billion from NT$245 billion in 2002. Hon Hai had a 51 percent increase in third-quarter profit as demand rose at its personal-computer and consumer-electronics factories in China.
■ Chunghwa's profit soars
Chunghwa Telecom Co's (中華電信) fourth-quarter profit nearly doubled compared with the year-earlier period as more customers used the nation's largest phone company's fixed-line services.
Chunghwa Telecom group net profit rose to NT$12 billion (US$357 million) in the last three months from NT$6.2 billion in the same period in 2002. The figures were derived by subtracting nine-month profit from the company's 12-month preliminary earnings.
Last year's net income rose 12 percent from 2002 to NT$48.4 billion (US$1.4 billion), the company said in an e-mailed statement. Sales, which were reported earlier, were NT$179.1 billion. That increased 1.7 percent from NT$176.1 billion in 2002.
■ CPC seeks oil tenders
Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油) plans to buy high-sulfur, or so-called sour crude oil for loading from mid-March through April, a company official said.
The company wants cargoes of crude oil with a sulfur content of more than 0.5 percent by weight, which would include most crude oil grades from the Middle East, said the official, who asked not to be named.
Sour crude oil is usually cheaper than grades with less sulfur because refiners need to remove the pollutant.
Suppliers must submit offers by 11am today and offers must be valid until 6pm tomorrow, the official said.
Chinese Petroleum usually buys grades such as Bahrain's Arab Medium, Yemen's Masila, Oman, Ratawi from the neutral zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Iraq's Basrah Light, Russia's Urals and CPC Blend crude oils. CPC Blend mainly comprises Kazakhstan's Tengiz crude oil and is sold through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium.
Last month, the company bought 500,000 barrels of Bahrain's Arab Medium crude oil for loading next month, less than its usual monthly requirement of between 1 million and 2 million barrels.
■ Dragonair sets record
Dragon Airlines, Hong Kong's second-largest carrier, said it flew a record number of passengers during the Lunar New Year holiday.
The airline carried 15,762 passengers on Jan. 26, beating the previous record of 14,711 on Feb. 6 last year, it said in a statement.
Dragonair is operating 65 extra flights between Jan. 15 and Feb. 2 to meet the increased demand.
Shares of China National Aviation Co, which controls Dragonair, fell 0.7 percent to HK$1.52 in Hong Kong.
■ NT dollar soars
The New Taiwan dollar rose to its highest in one-and-a-half years after shares climbed, raising expectations that overseas money managers will buy more of the currency to pay for further investments in the nation's stocks.
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