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Business Quick Take

■ New business council planned
Business groups from Taiwan and Luxembourg announced yesterday plans to establish a joint business council to promote trade between the two countries.
The joint business council would help Taiwanese companies to understand investment opportunities in Luxembourg, and also for Luxembourg firms looking to invest in Taiwan or penetrate into Asia through Taiwan, Theodore Huang (黃茂雄), chairman of the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce (工商協進會), told a press briefing yesterday.
Huang and Marc Soliv, chief executive of Paul Wurth Cy, will be chairmen of the joint council. China Airlines (中華航空) chairman Philip Wei (魏幸雄) and Charles Muller, director of the Luxembourg Investment Fund Association, will be the vice chairmen.
Luxembourg is Taiwan's 60th biggest trade partner, with bilateral trade reaching US$295.75 million last year.

■ Motech plans GDR issue
Motech Industries Inc (茂迪), the nation's largest solar-cell maker, plans to raise US$220 million selling global depositary receipts (GDR) to buy raw materials and equipment.
Motech will sell as many as 18 million new GDRs, or 11.1 percent of the firm's capital, in a transaction being arranged by Credit Suisse Group and Morgan Stanley.
Each GDR, to be listed on the Luxembourg Stock Exchange and traded on the London Stock Exchange's international order book, equals one new share in the Taipei-based company.
The NT$407.5 closing price of Motech's Taiwan-traded shares yesterday values the stake at NT$7.3 billion (US$220 million). The company may expand the sale by as much as 5 percent to cover any surplus demand.
Motech will use the proceeds to buy raw materials and acquire equipment and machinery for photovoltaic cell production.

■ TSMC denies factory plan
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufac-turing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world's largest manufacturer of customized chips, said it does not have any immediate plans to build a new chip factory that was reported to cost US$10 billion in a local newspaper article.
The company has no plan "at present," to build a factory to produce chips out of wafers measuring 18 inches in diameter, said Tzeng Jinnnhaw (曾晉皓), spokesman for Hsinchu-based TSMC. TSMC is "looking into" such a plan for the future, Tzeng said, without specifying when.

■ Chi Mei plans China investment
Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子) said yesterday it plans to invest another US$65 million in its Chinese thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal-display (TFT-LCD) production lines.
Some US$35 million would be spent on a plant in Foshan, in southeastern Guangdong Province, and US$30 million would go to Ningbo, eastern Zhejiang Province, a Chi Mei spokeswoman said.
The investment plans are pending government approval, she said.

■ Machine tool sector gets boost
Eyeing the great potential of Taiwan's machine tool and component industries, officials said yesterday that the government would allocate NT$630 million (US$19.09 million) over the next four years as part of a plan to enhance the sector's global competitiveness.
Based on recent developments, the Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) predicted that annual production of machine tools and parts would hit NT$340 billion by 2015.
The IDB plans to initiate an upgrading project, which it hoped would make Taiwan one of the world's three largest manufacturers of machinery components, and the main research and development center for advanced and high-precision machinery components in Asia, the officials said.

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