Fix trade imbalance: Chen
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday that Taiwan's imbalance between technology imports and exports must be addressed if the country intends to maintain its international competitiveness.
During an inspection tour of the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Hsinchu, Chen said that the ratio of technology imports to exports stood at 1 to 0.25 between 1997 and 2002, meaning that when Taiwan exported NT$1 worth of technology, it imported NT$4 worth of similar products at the same time.
Amid fierce competition worldwide in a time of knowledge-based economies, the nation must strive to turn its deficit in technology imports to surpluses in the way that it turned its overall trade deficit into a surplus over the past several decades to secure its competitive edge in the new "global race" in the 21st century, Chen said.
Steady growth expected
The economy will expand "steadily" this year as the government sticks to its forecast for 4.21 percent economic growth, central bank Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) said yesterday.
The nation's consumer prices rose 1.2 percent from a year earlier in the first two months of this year. The central bank earlier said inflation may exceed the government's 1.7 percent projection this year. The agency will take necessary measures to maintain "stable" prices and "financial stability," Perng said today before a legislative finance committee meeting.
Acer names two separate heads
Acer Inc, the world's fifth-biggest computer supplier by shipments, yesterday named separate chiefs for China and Taiwan, which previously were overseen by the same executive.
Lay Tai-yueh (賴泰岳) will oversee China operations, while Scott Lin (林顯郎) will be in charge of Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taipei-based company said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. Acer previously grouped China, Taiwan and Hong Kong into a "Greater China" region.
The personnel changes are aimed at boosting revenue in the Chinese market and reinforcing the company's "foothold in the home market," Acer said.
Firms may enter partnership
China's TCL Corp may form a LCD-panel molding venture with Taiwanese companies Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管) and TPV Technology Ltd (冠捷科技), a Chinese-language newspaper reported, without saying where it obtained the information.
TCL chairman Tomson Li (李東生) is currently on a visit to Taiwan, where venture talks may be under way, the Taipei-based newspaper reported.
TCL owns the world's largest television maker in partnership with France's Thomson SA. Chunghwa Picture Tubes is Taiwan's third largest flat-panel display maker. TPV Technology, a Taiwanese company that lists its shares in Hong Kong, is the world's second-largest maker of cathode-ray tube computer monitors.
AU head to lead Wellypower
AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) president Chen Hsuan-bin (陳炫彬) is set to become chairman of Wellypower Optronics Corp (威力盟電子) today after his company bought a 12 percent stake in the maker of fluorescent lamps for liquid-crystal display panels, a Chinese-language business daily reported, without saying where it obtained the information.
AU Optronics also will get two board seats at Wellypower, which has 10 production lines in Taiwan and two in China, the newspaper said. The timing and cost of the stake were not disclosed.
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