Business Briefs

■ Shares close down
Taiwanese prices closed 2.96 percent lower yesterday as Wall Street's overnight plunge and huge losses at Citigroup undermined sentiment, dealers said.
Bellwether stocks were also battered by Intel's decline in after-hours US trading after the world's biggest chipmaker released weaker-than-expected quarterly results, dealers said.
The TAIEX closed down 249.30 points at the day's low of 8,179.54 on turnover of NT$228.94 billion (US$7.09 billion).
Decliners advancers 1,746 to 337, with 247 stocks unchanged. A total of 12 stocks closed limit-up, while 72 were limit-down.
Mao Jen-chieh (毛仁傑), the president of Pro Standard Capital Management (禮正證券投顧), said foreign investors apparently took a cue from Intel's weakness and offloaded local technology holdings, driving the broad market lower.
"The New York lead convinced investors to take profits after gains in the past two sessions," Mao said.
Given heavy reliance on exports to the US, "local technology may continue to be clouded by concerns over US consumer spending."
But Mao said financials and some other old-economy stocks should continue to rise, despite some profit-taking yesterday.
■ ProMOS extends closure
ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德), Taiwan's third-biggest maker of computer-memory chips, will extend a factory maintenance shutdown this year to help curb losses after an industry glut drove prices to record lows.
"Since chip prices are not good and market demand is quite weak, we plan to let workers take more days off during the Chinese New Year holiday," Ben Tseng (曾邦助), a spokesman at the Hsinchu-based company, said yesterday.
The factory in Taichung will remain closed for 10 days, compared with three to four days in previous years, he said.
The plant will be closed from Jan. 27, Tseng said.
■ Alcatel-Lucent to share center
Telecom supplier Alcatel-Lucent yesterday said it would open its WiMAX Application and Interoperability Testing (IOT) Center to local customer-premises-equipment (CPE) manufacturers, working with the Ministry of Economic Affairs to help foster a robust, mature WiMAX ecosystem.
The Taiwanese center will provide an end-to-end interoperability-testing environment for local companies producing communications equipment for businesses and residences, according to a statement.
Establishing testing center in Taiwan will help manufacturers reduce testing costs and time to market, the company said.
The center will also leverage Alcatel-Lucent's expertise to accelerate development of a variety of high-speed multimedia applications in Taiwan, it said.
■ Sunrise to pay off debt
Sunrise Department Store (中興百貨) president Bao Pei-lin (鮑佩鈴) said yesterday the retailer would pay back 2 percent to 3 percent of last year's accumulated debt to suppliers by the end of this month, in hopes that the suppliers would provide their new spring and summer clothing collection to the Taipei store.
Bao Jeff Tsai (蔡振世) as president early this month, after the company bounced NT$300 million (US$9.3 million) in checks in November. Sunrise, a subsidiary of Chung Shing Textile Co (中興紡織), owed its suppliers a total of NT$250 million last year, with outstanding loans reaching NT$640 million.

■ NT dollar loses ground
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground yesterday against the US dollar, falling NT$0.012 to close at NT$32.272. US$1.877 billion changed hands during the day's trading.