■ Taipower turns to solar panels
State-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電), the nation's biggest electricity generator, plans to spend NT$3.57 billion (US$108 million) installing solar panels as the government aims to reduce dependency on energy imports.
The project, pending the approval of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, will increase Taipower's capacity by 10 megawatts, or 71 times, by 2011, Yu Shang-hsiung (余勝雄), Taipower's development director, said over the telephone yesterday.
Taipower's solar power capacity is 140 kilowatts, Yu said.
■ Nation ranks 19th in survey
The nation's potential competitiveness ranked 19th among the world's 50 major economies last year, up two notches from the previous year to share position with South Korea, the results of a survey released yesterday by the Japan Center for Economic Research showed.
The top tspots went to Hong Kong, Singapore and the US, in that order, while Japan took 12th and China ranked 35th.
Among the eight criteria of the survey, Taiwan ranked the 18th in internationalization, 25th in business efficiency, 16th in education, 18th in financial system, 43rd in government efficiency, seventh in technological development, sixth in social infrastructure and 13th in information technology, the survey said.
■ NT drops against greenback
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday,declining NT$0.032 to close at NT$32.970 on turnover of US$941 million.
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