Formosa denies GM venture
Formosa Automobile Corp (台塑汽車), the car making unit of Taiwan's largest industrial group, denied a local report it had signed an agreement to set up a 50-50 manufacturing venture with General Motors Corp, the world's largest automaker.
Formosa Automobile has made two passenger cars with South Korea's Daewoo Motor Co, most of whose assets General Motors has taken over. Formosa's plans to make a third model with Daewoo have been delayed since the General Motors takeover, said Formosa Automobile senior Vice President Argus Lee.
The companies need to resolve potential conflicts between plans for General Motors' Taiwan unit to import Daewoo cars and Formosa Automobile's plans to build a car with Daewoo, said Lee.
``Our agreement with Daewoo has always been on a case-by-case basis,'' or model-by-model basis, said Lee.
Taiwan Cellular added to MSCI
Taiwan Cellular Corp (台灣大哥大), Korea Tobacco & Ginseng Corp, Opap SA and Anthem Inc will be added to Morgan Stanley Capital International Inc's indexes, the benchmark compiler said in a statement.
Fund managers tracking the MSCI benchmarks may buy shares of the companies being added to the indexes.
Taiwan Cellular, the nation's second-largest mobile-phone service provider, gained 1.7 percent to NT$29.50.
``Institutional investors tracking the MSCI index will have to build up holdings in Taiwan Cellular to reflect its member status,'' said Jerry Chen, who helps manage NT$8.3 billion (US$239 million) at First Global Investment Trust Co (元大投信).
EVA raises pretax profit forecast
EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) raised its 2002 pretax profit forecast by 64 percent as Taiwan's second- largest airline cut costs.
EVA expects pretax profit to reach NT$2.3 billion (US$67 million), compared with its September forecast of NT$1.4 billion, the company said in a statement. Last year, the company posted a NT$3.17 billion net loss.
Sales for the year are expected to rise to NT$64.2 billion, compared with the previous estimate of NT$62.8 billion, EVA said.
EVA Air returned to profit in the first half of the year, posting net income of NT$765 million, after expanding routes to Japan in April.
In July, the company more than doubled its flights to Hong Kong.
Cargo business helps CAL profit
China Airlines Co (華航), Taiwan's largest carrier, said next year's pretax profit will probably at least match its 2002 target of NT$2.22 billion (US$64 million), helped by its cargo business.
Profit before tax in 2003 will be ``at least the same as or better'' than this year's forecast, said President and Chief Executive Philip Wei (魏幸雄) in a interview on the sidelines of a meeting of the Association of Asia-Pacific Airlines.
``Cargo business will continue to be strong next year.''
The company last month raised its pretax profit forecast for the year by more than half after it increased cargo rates between 5 percent and 10 percent in September on strong demand for airfreight services.
It increased the forecast to NT$2.22 billion from NT$1.41 billion.
NT dollar rises against US
The NT dollar yesterday rose against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.026 to close at NT$34.710 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$444 million, compared with the previous day's US$426 million.
Agencies
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