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World Business Quick Take

■ Semiconductors
Toshiba ups chip production
Japan's Toshiba will invest ¥200 billion (US$1.8 billion) to boost output of flash-memory chips used for mobile phones and portable music players to meet soaring global demand, a report said yesterday. The electronics giant will lift production capacity at its domestic chip plant to 150,000 units per month in 2007, sharply up from the current capacity of 10,000 units, the business daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. Toshiba's move will likely pose a challenge to South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co, the world's biggest computer-memory chip maker, which controls more than 50 percent of the global flash-memory market, the daily said. Toshiba estimates the global market value for high-density NAND flash memory chips will soar to ¥2 trillion in 2008, up 168 percent from ¥745 billion last year.

■ Telecom
Canberra mulling options
The Australian government could transfer some or all of its shares in the telecommunications giant Telstra into a proposed "future fund" rather than sell them at any price, Finance Minister Nick Minchin said yesterday. The government of Prime Minister John Howard has authorized the controversial sale of its remaining 51.8 percent share in the company for which it hopes to raise some A$30 billion (US$23 billion). Minchin, who is preparing a report for Cabinet on the sale, said it had not yet been decided whether the sale would proceed in one tranche or three. If there was a partial sell-off, the government's remaining stake could be transferred to a proposed "future fund," designed to pay for the government's future pension liabilities, and sold at the discretion of the fund's independent board. Minchin said it was possible that all of the government's Telstra shares could be placed in this fund.

■ Trade
EU official urges effort
Mariann Fischer Boel, the agriculture commissioner of the EU, said yesterday that a "huge effort" is needed if the upcoming WTO meeting in Hong Kong is to be a success. Speaking after an informal meeting with the agriculture ministers of Australia, Japan, the US and Canada in Queensland state, she urged all countries to work to end the current impasse in trade talks. "We all realize what is at stake and now all sides have to contribute to keeping this train on track, making sure there is movement in all three agricultural pillars -- export subsidies, domestic support and market access," she said in a statement. December's WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong is hoped to conclude the Doha round of talks after four years of often heated negotiations designed to reduce protectionism and promote trade to aid development in poorer countries. However, the failure to hammer out an interim agreement last month prompted speculation that the December meeting was doomed to failure.

■ Automobiles
Hybrid owners seek passes
California owners of hybrid-electric cars are rushing to get state permits that let them drive without passengers in freeway carpool lanes, with about 1,000 people applying per day, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. More than 12,000 drivers have registered for the special stickers that became available Aug. 10, the paper said. California passed a law allowing solo drivers of high-mileage hybrids into carpool lanes last year.

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