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Commission fines Philips
The Fair Trade Commission fined Royal Philips Electronics NV, Europe's largest consumer electronics maker, NT$6 million (US$185,700) yesterday for violating Article 24 of the Fair Trade Law (公平交易法) in response to a patent-protection complaint filed by three Taiwanese manufacturers in 2001.
In a statement, the commission said three compact-disc makers complained that Philips, a major patent holder of CD-R, demanded they provide their manufacturing details and sales reports in order to obtain the patent.
Since Philips also sells its own branded CD-R, the commission said it was inappropriate to require confidential information -- including utility rates, capacities, and client lists -- which could benefit its business and thus created unfair competition.

Taiwan Life declares dividends
The board of directors of Taiwan Life Insurance Co (台灣人壽), the nation's eighth-largest life insurer, yesterday declared dividends of NT$3 per share, including a cash dividend of NT$2 and a stock dividend of NT$1, according to a statement issued by the company.
The board also recognized last year's financial statement. The company, with total assets of NT$182.9 billion, posted audited premium revenues of NT$30.9 billion last year and net profits of NT$1.74 billion with earnings per share of NT$4.11.
The firm expanded business operations into "service apartments" with the first project launched in Taipei in February. It estimated annual returns should surpass 5 percent.
It also acquired debt-ridden property insurer Kuo Hua Insurance Co (國華產險) in an auction earlier this month. The new property insurance firm is expected to make profits in three years.

TRI predicts CPI increase
The consumer price index (CPI) might rise 0.6 percent if electricity rates go up 10 percent as a result of gasoline price hikes, a researcher at the Taiwan Research Institute (TRI, 台綜院) said on Wednesday.
Lin Tang-yu (林唐裕) said that if the cost of electricity goes up 3 percent, the CPI will roughly increase 0.2 percent this year, and if electricity prices rise 10 percent, the CPI rise will possibly reach 0.6 percent this year, causing the CPI adjustment to exceed the 2 percent target.
The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics previously predicted the annual CPI rise this year would be 1.7 percent.
Lin said that it will be quite difficult to keep the CPI increase under 2 percent this year when electricity costs are taken into account.
However, Lin said that expenditure on electricity only represent 10 percent of the total cost of the country's energy-intensive industry and is not expected to greatly affect industrial competitiveness or people's everyday life.
Chip tester plans expansion

United Test & Assembly Center Ltd (聯合科技), Singapore's second-largest provider of computer chip-testing services, said it plans to invest S$500 million (US$313 million) in the city-state over the next five years, including renovations at a factory.
"Our expansion in Singapore will be the first in a line of subsequent expansions of our other regional production facilities," chief executive officer Lee Joon Chung (李永松) said in the statement to the Singapore Exchange yesterday.
United Test has factories in China, Taiwan and another in Singapore.
NT dollar gains

The New Taiwan dollar continued gaining ground against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.097 to close at NT$32.311 on turnover of US$1.23 billion.


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