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■ Bank to issue new coins
The central bank is set to issue 21,200 commemorative silver coins to mark the Taipei 2005 Stamp Exhibition and the 18th Asian International Stamp Exhibition to be held in Taipei from today until Wednesday, bank authorities said yesterday. The commemorative silver coin bears a picture of flying geese and the 18th Asian International Stamp Exhibition on the front side and a picture of Taipei 101 -- the tallest building in the world -- and a commemorative stamp marking the exhibition on the reverse side.

■ Taiwan, India should cooperate
Taiwan-India cooperation, particularly in the information technology field, has a huge potential to make the two countries invincible around the world, Taiwanese and Indian officials said Wednesday. At a seminar on Taiwan-India business prospects and challenges, India-Taipei Association chairman Vijay Gokhale said India provides enormous business and investment opportunities. Wu Hsin-hua (吳新華), deputy director-general of the Bureau of Foreign Trade under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, said that the ministry has listed India as one of its nine foreign markets worthy of exploration by Taiwanese companies. The ministry sent two trade promotion missions to India last year, while India also dispatched a group to Taiwan, he said. Government statistics showed that Taiwanese exports to India hit more than US$1.07 million last year, while imports reached US$860 million.

■ Goldman Sachs lifts oil forecast
Goldman Sachs Group Inc raised its oil forecast for next year to US$68 a barrel and said crude will stay at about US$60 a barrel for years to come. "Even at these higher prices, reinvestment rates if anything appear to be falling not rising," according to the Aug. 17 report from analysts including Steve Strongin and Jeffrey Currie. Oil companies are wary of "shifting tax regimes in oil-rich nations, a range of technologies that could provide future supplies, labor shortages and uncertainty around access to low-cost supplies." Goldman Sachs earlier this year was criticized after it said oil prices could experience a "super spike" to US$105 a barrel should supplies be disrupted from the Middle East.

■ Matsushita overtakes LG
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co of Japan overtook South Korea's LG Electronics Inc as the world's second-largest maker of plasma display panels (PDPs) used in televisions, market researcher DisplaySearch said. Osaka-based Matsushita, which makes products under the Panasonic brand, overtook Seoul-based LG during the second quarter after increasing its share of PDPs sold worldwide to 25 percent from 14 percent in the first quarter, Austin, Texas-based DisplaySearch said in a press release, which didn't specify LG's market share. Industry leader Samsung SDI Co's market share fell to 31 percent in the quarter from 33 percent in the previous quarter, according to the statement. Falling prices helped fuel global plasma TV shipments to rise 24 percent in the second quarter from the previous quarter to a record 1.1 million units, overtaking sales of rear projection TVs for the first time, DisplaySearch said.

■ NT dollar continues to slide
The New Taiwan dollar continued trading lower against its US counterpart, declining NT$0.048 to close at NT$32.114 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$762 million, down from US$1 billion the day before.

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