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Alarm for Asia Pacific Telecom

Asia Pacific Telecom Co (亞太電信), one of Taiwan's third-generation (3G) service providers, yesterday claimed that creditor Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA, 台鐵) had requested that a court free more than NT$50 million in its 24 bank accounts, placing the financially troubled telecom in a dire situation.

TRA's move comes amid a row over the nomination of a new chairman after Springfield Lai (賴春田) quit last week. “The sudden move will weaken the confidence of our suppliers and partners [in its financial situation],” Asia Pacific spokeswoman Christine Lee (李宜樺) told the <> by telephone.

Asia Pacific borrowed NT$400 million from TRA in 2000 to pay business tax, but have not paid anything back since then, Lee said.

TRA, however, said it did not file an injunction to freeze the bank accounts. It said that it was merely checking the accounts to ensure that the money could be recovered. Asia Pacific has 1.26 million subscribers.

TAIEX dips on uncertainty

Taiwan share prices closed 0.34 percent lower yesterday on late selling due to political uncertainty two days ahead of legislative elections, dealers said.

Dealers attributed the domestic market's rise in early trade to Wall Street's overnight strength and robust December sales announced by select local firms.

The TAIEX closed down 27.79 points at 8,057.27, off a high of 8,177.13, on turnover of NT$134.24 billion (US$4.13 billion).

Advancers led decliners 1,064 to 830, with 462 stocks unchanged. A total of 12 stocks closed limit-up, while 29 were limit-down.

Alvin Teng (鄧可欣), an assistant vice president at SinoPac Securities Corp (永豐金證券), said some investors who had earlier built their positions at high levels decided to exit the market ahead of Saturday's parliamentary vote.

"Riding on early advances, short-term investors locked in profits while those who built positions at high prices earlier were eager to cut losses," Teng said.

Ministry approves investments

The Investment Commission under the Ministry of Economic Affairs approved seven outbound investment projects yesterday, including two to be made in Vietnam and South Korea and five in China.

The commission gave the green light for an investment plan filed by Yieh Phui Enterprise (燁輝) to establish a US$147 million steel mill in Vietnam. The new company, to be named Tycoons Worldwide Steel (Vietnam), will mainly produce hot-press steel rolls and steel billets, according to commission officials.

The commission also approved Prime View International Co's (元太科技) planned US$225 million investment in South Korea's Boe Hydis Technology for the production and sales of LCD flat display panels.

Meanwhile, the commission also signaled approval for Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑) to add a new investment of US$64 million to a polypropyline manufacturing company that the Taiwanese plastic giant has been operating in China's eastern city of Ningbo in Zhejiang Province.


Sony drops PlayStation models

Sony's game unit is discontinuing two PlayStation 3 game machine models sold only in Japan to streamline its lineup and boost software development, a company official said yesterday.

Sony Computer Entertainment will stop shipping PS3 machines equipped with 20-gigabyte and 60-gigabyte hard drives to Japanese vendors this month, game unit spokesman Sosuke Kamei said.

NT dollar continues fall

The New Taiwan dollar continued losing ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Forex Inc yesterday, declining NT$0.021 to close at NT$32.487.

A total of US$658 million changed hands during the day's trading.
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