■ Chi Mei plans China plant
Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子), one of Taiwan's leading flat-panel display makers, said yesterday it was planning to invest US$30 million to set up a production base in southern China. "We will build a factory in southern China to produce back-light modules [for flat panel display use]. The project is expected to attract investments from satellite firms to form a cluster of manufacturers there," a Chi Mei spokeswoman said. The project has been approved by the company's board of directors and is awaiting approval from the government, the spokeswoman said, adding that details of the project are expected to be disclosed at an investor conference on April 25. Chi Mei currently operates a back-light module plant in Ningbo, southeastern China, which has a capacity of one million units a month. If approved, the new plant will be built in the same location with a 2.5 million unit monthly capacity.
■ Tax revenues decline
The treasury took in NT$122.5 billion (US$3.78 billion) worth of taxes last month, a 1.2 percent decrease from a year ago, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The biggest drop was recorded in land value incremental tax revenues, which slid NT$6 billion, or 50.3 percent, from a year ago when a flood of cases were applicable to the halved tax rate scheme, said Lee Li-shu (李麗雪), acting director of the statistics department. Income from securities transaction tax rose by 16.8 percent to NT$7.6 billion last month due to stronger stock transactions. The average daily stock turnover last month stood at NT$90.6 billion, up from NT$73.8 billion a year ago. For the first three months of the year, tax revenues hit NT$299 billion, up by 5 percent from the same period last year, the ministry said. The figure accounts for 20.3 percent of the target set for the whole year, it said.
■ TSMC sales exceed estimates
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufact-uring Co (TSMC, 台積電) said yesterday its sales last month came in at NT$27.11 billion (US$836.73 million), up 12.9 percent from February's NT$24.01 billion on an increase in shipments. TSMC, the world's largest contract chip maker, said sales in March rose 53.9 percent from a year earlier. In the first three months of the year, sales rose 38.9 percent year-on-year to NT$77.29 billion, it said. Sales for the first-quarter exceeded TSMC's earlier estimate of NT$73 billion to NT$76 billion, but were down on the NT$81.16 billion recorded in the fourth quarter of last year.
■ New CPC chairman announced
Kuo Kuang Power Co (國光電力) chairman Pan Wenent (潘文炎) will serve as chairman of the state-run Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC, 中油), Minister of Economic Affairs Morgan Hwang (黃營杉) announced yesterday. Pan, 61, chairman of Kuo Kuang Power Co since October 2004, will fill the post left vacant by Kuo Chin-tsai (郭進財), who left in January to serve as chairman of Kuo Kuang Petrochemical Technology Corp (國光石化). Pan has previously served as president of CPC. Pan said he would shortly evaluate whether or not to adjust gasoline prices, as the company has seen a loss of NT$13.8 billion (US$425.86 million) for the first quarter of the year. "Taiwan's gasoline prices should be decided by market mechanisms," he said yesterday.
■ NT dollar declines
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining NT$0.077 to close at NT$32.405.
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