■ TRADE
US in `banana war'
The US on Friday joined the "banana war" at the WTO, alleging the EU treats Latin American producers unfairly. US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said the US requested a WTO panel to review "whether the European Union's banana import regime breaches the EU's WTO obligations" of more than a decade ago. The US claims the EU failed to implement WTO rulings in a 1996 action initiated by Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and the US. Four-fifths of the bananas imported by the EU are grown in Latin America.
■ FOOD
China rejects US ban
China cannot accept the ban on four kinds of seafood imported from the mainland by the US and urged the matter be settled as soon as possible, Xinhua reported yesterday. The US Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday it would not allow imports of Chinese farm-raised seafood unless suppliers could prove the shipments contained no harmful residue. There might be isolated cases of Chinese enterprises exporting products with quality problems, Xinhua quoted Li Changjiang (李長江), director of the State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, as saying. However, the ban of all exports of such products is "unacceptable," Li said.
■ ENERGY
Formosa plans new plant
Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), the nation's biggest diversified industrial company, plans to build a polysilicon plant in Taiwan to tap rising demand for solar energy. Formosa Plastics is in talks with Renewable Energy Corp ASA of Norway, MEMC Electronic Materials Inc of the US and Japan's Tokuyama Corp to develop technology to produce the material, Lee Chih-tsuen (李志村), a member of the group's executive committee, said on Friday. Renewable Energy, MEMC and Tokuyama produce polysilicon used to make semiconductors and solar cells.
■ FINANCE
Huijin folded into agency
Central Huijin Investment Co (中央匯金), the Chinese government's investment arm, will be folded into the new agency created to manage part of the nation's US$1.2 trillion in foreign reserves, a central bank official said. The new State Investment Co will assume the responsibilities of Beijing-based Central Huijin, which holds controlling stakes on behalf of the government in the nation's three-biggest state-owned banks, Wu Xiaoling (吳曉靈), deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, said in Shanghai yesterday. The Ministry of Finance won approval from lawmakers yesterday to issue 1.55 trillion (US$200 billion) of bonds to buy a portion of China's foreign-exchange reserves and inject the funds into the State Investment Co.
■ COMPUTERS
SanDisk, Ritek suit settled
SanDisk Corp, the world's largest maker of flash-memory cards, and Ritek Corp (錸德) settled a patent dispute and agreed to license each other's technology. Terms of the settlement and agreement are confidential, Milpitas, California-based SanDisk said in a statement. SanDisk sued Taiwan-based Ritek and its distributors Memorex Products Inc and Pretec Electronics Corp in 2001, saying they infringed a patent for memory cells. Flash memory stores data whether a device is on or off and is used in digital cameras and MP3 players.
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