■ Powerchip plans third plant
Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體), which in the first quarter became the nation's largest memory-chip maker, said it aims to build its third semiconductor plant for a cost of about US$2 billion.
The plant, which would start production in the third quarter of 2006, would make memory chips for personal computers, mobile phones and consumer electronic products, spokesman Eric Tang (譚仲民) said, responding to an article in a Chinese-language newspaper .
Powerchip has asked the government to help it find land for the project, Tang said. The plant would probably be funded from internal cash flow, he added.
The company, which last year made only computer memory chips, has diversified its output to avoid losses caused by oversupply and dependence on a single product.
Rivals such as Samsung Electronics Co and Micron Technology Inc, the world's largest computer memory-chip makers, have also broadened their range of products.
■ Lending enjoys rapid growth
Bank lending rose 10.3 percent last month, its fastest growth in six years, as companies borrowed funds to expand.
Total lending by financial institutions rose to NT$14.88 trillion (US$442 billion) last month, from NT$13.49 trillion a year earlier, the central bank said on its Web site. The increase is the biggest since an 11.3-percent gain in March 1998, and marked the ninth consecutive month of growth.
Record-low borrowing costs and expected economic growth are sustaining demand for loans. The central bank yesterday left the nation's key interest rate unchanged at a record low at its quarterly policy meeting.
M2, the broadest measure of money supply, grew 8.6 percent from a year earlier last month, which marked its largest gain in almost five years.
■ Koos look to Europe
The Koo family, which controls the nation's sixth-largest financial services provider, may form a strategic alliance with a European financial group, a newspaper reported, quoting Chinatrust Financial Holdings Co (中信金控) president Jeffrey Koo (辜仲諒).
The family may form the alliance with a European company to enter China's market as early as next month, the paper quoted Koo as saying. He didn't identify the European group.
■ Minister rules out yuan
Minister of Economic Affairs Ho Mei-yueh (何美玥) yesterday dismissed as "unrealistic" the claim that the Chinese yuan could be used in transactions across the Taiwan Strait.
Asked to comment on a Chinese academic's suggestion that Beijing should consider full convertibility for the yuan for cross-strait trade, Ho said that to the best of her understanding, no company engaging in international trade anywhere in the world would choose to use a currency that is still under government control for import or export transactions.
Ho said that most of the Taiwanese companies operating business in China use either the US dollar or the NT dollar as a trading currency.
Taking the information technology industry as an example, Taiwanese exporters, regardless of whether their products are to be delivered from Taiwan or China, all use the greenback in their quotes, Ho said.
■ NT dollar gains
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday gained ground against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.027 to close at NT$33.68 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$603 million.
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