Minister of Economic Affairs Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) told reporters yesterday he was not aware of any meetings with China Mobile Ltd (中國移動) chairman Wang Jianzhou (王建宙), who is scheduled to make his first visit to Taiwan today.
“I have been extremely busy with the [Morakot] typhoon rescue efforts down in southern Taiwan, so I am not aware of there being such a meeting on my agenda,” Yiin said.
“It really depends on the context of the meeting. If such a meeting were to help out with cross-strait affairs, I would not be against it. However, if Wang wants to discuss possible acquisition of Far EasTone Telecommunications Ltd (遠傳) shares, then I am not so sure,” Yiin said.
Since April, Far EasTone chairman Douglas Hsu (徐旭東) has been promoting the sale of a 12 percent share in the telecom business to the world’s biggest phone company by subscribers.
After the ministry published on May 11 the list of 99 sectors that would now be open to Chinese capital, however, Yiin said that “anything related to national defense or that could jeopardize the nation’s defense will be excluded, including state-run enterprises CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Taiwan Power Co (台電), as well as primary telecommunications operators.”
The Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday that Wang was seeking to meet Yiin during his visit, without specifying the reason why.
During his 10-day visit, Wang is expected to visit several Taiwanese companies such as HTC Corp (宏達電), Acer Inc (宏碁), Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) and United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), the online Chinese-language NOWnews.com said yesterday.
In Hong Kong yesterday, Wang said at the company’s interim results press conference that China Mobile intended to develop high-speed wireless handsets with HTC.
His remark came after Dell Inc announced it would team up with China Mobile to develop a smartphone in direct competition with Research In Motion Ltd’s BlackBerry and Apple Inc’s iPhone.
Jack Tong (董俊良), vice president of HTC’s Asia-Pacific region, said yesterday he was not personally aware of any planned HTC meetings with Wang.
China Mobile yesterday posted its first quarterly decline in profit since 1999 after subscriber growth slowed as the carrier cut prices to counter competition from China Telecom Corp (中國電信) and China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd (中國聯通).
Second-quarter net income fell to 30.1 billion yuan (US$4.4 billion) from 30.6 billion yuan a year earlier, according to figures Bloomberg derived from the Beijing-based company’s first-half earnings reported yesterday.
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), a measure of profitability in the phone industry, rose 5.8 percent in the first half to 109.9 billion yuan, China Mobile said.
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