Sat, Nov 02, 2002 page11

• Business briefs

  • STAFF WRITER, WITH AGENCIES
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  ICBC shares up for sale

  Taiwan plans Wednesday to auction about a third of International Commercial Bank of China (中國商銀), a transaction worth about NT$24 billion (US$691 million), to raise funds to pay debt.

  KGI Securities Co (中信證券) will manage the sale of 1.19 billion shares owned by the Executive Yuan's Development Fund (開發基金), a stock exchange statement said. The shares are worth about NT$24 billion based on the lender's stock price today. Taiwan government owns 41 percent of the nation's seventh-largest lender by assets.

  "This seems to be mainly a transfer of stake by the government to CTB Financial Holding Co (交銀金控), which will probably take part in the auction," said Aaron Wu (吳佩偉) at ABN Amro Asset Management Taiwan Ltd (荷銀光華投信).

  Microsoft settlement questioned

  The Consumers' Foundation (消基會) yesterday made an appeal urging the Fair Trade Commission to withdraw the administrative settlement decision it has made with Microsoft Corp over the US software giant's allegedly unfair trade practice in Taiwan.

  Jason Lee (李鳳翱), vice chairman of the foundation, said at a press conference that Fair Trade Commission's decision to accept Microsoft's request for administrative settlement did not take the public interests into consideration.

  To best serve the public interest, Microsoft should lower its software prices to a reasonable range, about one-fourth of the current tag prices, Lee said.

  "If the commission insists in having an administrative settlement with Microsoft, we may consider bringing the case to the Control Yuan and ask for justice there," Lee said.

  Rice monitoring called for

  DPP Legislator Cheng Kuo-chung (鄭國忠) yesterday called for the administration to set up a warning index system to watch against excessive rice imports.

  According to Cheng, the Executive Yuan has approved the "quota principle" for rice imports and has informed the WTO Secretariat that beginning at the start of 2003, Taiwan will allow imports of foreign rice based on this principle, instead of the "restricted imports" principle.

  Under the "quota" principle, Taiwan will allow rice imports for the year amounting to 8 percent of the nation's total consumption of rice the previous year, with a surcharge of NT$45 being placed on each extra kilogram of rice imported beyond the 8-percent quota.

  Under this formula, there are no restrictions on how much rice can be imported and it will consequently have a serious impact on Taiwan's domestic rice farmers, numbering about 350,000, Cheng said.

  Nanya to raise chip prices

  Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), Taiwan's largest maker of high-speed memory chips, plans to raise its contract prices as much as a tenth next month because supplies of the semiconductors lag demand.

  Computer makers are using faster chips to try to boost demand in personal computer sales, which last year had their worst slump since 1985. Those chips accounted for almost half of the memory chip market in September, compared with about a tenth a year earlier.

  "Supply is still pretty limited," said Nanya spokesman Charles Kau (高啟全). "It's not really a recovery. The product mix change from standard chips to high-speed memory chips is taking longer than people thought."

  NT dollar falls

  The New Taiwan dollar yesterday fell NT$0.034 to close at NT$34.795 against its US counterpart on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$316 million, compared with the previous day's US$439 million.
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