Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-hsiang (施顏祥) was tight-lipped yesterday about how the ministry will deal with Sino Swearingen Aircraft Corp (SSAC), despite a press report that the ministry is negotiating with a US firm on investment in the Taiwan-US aircraft joint venture.
Shih, who visited the US company's San Antonio, Texas, headquarters in October, reportedly paid another visit to the company recently. But Shih yesterday declined to discuss the deal.
"I have no comment on the report," Shih told the Taipei Times yesterday, in response to a report by the Chinese-language Commercial Times saying that the ministry might issue new SSAC shares to the US company, which plans to invest between US$100 and US$200 million in SSAC.
The US company wants to assume management of SSAC but the ministry has not agreed to those terms, the report said, citing unidentified ministry sources.
The ministry has negotiatied with the US company for a month, and the investment deal is expected to be concluded in one or two weeks, the report said.
The ministry is the trustee of Taiwan's Sino Aerospace Investment Corp (華揚航太投資), which has a nearly 90 percent stake in SSAC.
Founded in 1995, Sino Aero-space Investment has injected US$600 million into SSAC, but it has run into a financial crisis as it has not yet begun mass production.
The company was forced to seek US$30 million from overseas investors, as no local investors were interested in the money-losing firm.
SSAC delivered its first light business jet, the SJ30, to a Texas customer on Nov. 1. It has 302 orders for SJ30s on hand, at a price of about US$6.2 million each, chairman and CEO Kuo Ching-chiang (
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