■ Rain damages crops
Crop and farmland damage from torrential rains since May 26 totaled NT$710 million (US$21.8 million), the Council of Agriculture said yesterday.
Farmers' groups and wholesalers will release 250 tonnes of vegetables from refrigerators a day to help make up for the losses, the council said on its Web site.
Damage to crops may help push up prices and stoke inflation, spurring the central bank to raise interest rates again.
Consumer prices may rise more than 2 percent this year because of soaring agricultural-product and commodity prices, Council for Economic Planning and Development Chairman Hu Sheng-cheng (胡勝正) said on Monday. The estimate is higher than the 1.8 percent forecast the statistics bureau announced last month, Hu said.
■ NCC rules on MOD
The National Communications Commission (NCC) ruled yesterday that Chunghwa Telecom Co's (中華電信) multimedia-on-demand (MOD) service has the characteristics of a cable service operator, and that the company is therefore in violation of the regulation which dictates that the influence of political parties and the military be withdrawn from the media.
The commission said that the MOD service should serve only as a platform. It ordered Chunghwa Telecom to remove all content from the service immediately.
The ruling also said the company should allow other Internet Service Providers to run similar services.
■ Tingsheng to build resort
The Penghu National Scenic Area Administration will sign a contract with Tingsheng Development Co (鼎勝開發) on Thursday for the construction of a resort complex under the build-operate-transfer (BOT) model.
The resort will be located on Yuweng Island (Fisherman Island), one of the three main islets in the Penghu archipelago, and near the Cross-Sea Bridge, the longest inter-island bridge in the Far East.
The proposed tourist development involves an initial investment totaling NT$1.2 billion. The government plans to assume management of the resort after 50 years.
■ Deep-water port planned
Kaohsiung Harbor, the world's sixth-busiest container port, will invite international tenders in August for the construction of a deep-water port to boost competitiveness, an official said yesterday.
"We will invite tenders on August 9 and will select the priority negotiator for the contract for the terminal by the end of the year," Harbor Master Huang Kuo-ying (黃國英) said.
Several foreign shipping lines including Maersk, APL, NYK and HMM are interested in building the 16m Inter-Continental Container Terminal, which would be the deepest container terminal in Taiwan.
Kaohsiung Harbor currently has five container terminals, the deepest of which is 14.5m.
Construction of the Inter-Continental Container Terminal will begin next year. The first wharf will begin operating in 2011, with three others to follow in 2013.
The new terminal's four 370m wharves will be able to handle 2 million TEUs (20-foot-equivalent units) per year.
The contract terms call for the winning contractor to design and build the terminal, and operate it for a period of 50 years. Cost of construction has been estimated at NT$12.3 billion.
■ NT dollar declines
The NT dollar weakened against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining NT$0.093 to close at NT$32.543.
A total of US$829 million changed hands during the day's trading.
RSS