■ Rail ticketing `failed': Chiang
The Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC, 台灣高鐵) said its ticketing system has not worked properly and that repairs are continuing after three weeks of problems.
"We purchased the system under a turnkey contract, but it has failed and is not fit for our use," THSRC spokesman Arthur Chiang (江金山) said.
The principal ticket system contractor is MiTAC Inc (神通), which subcontracted work to companies including IBM Corp and Amtrak, he said.
The railway opened on Jan. 5 after a 14-month delay and has since encountered ticketing problems including double-booking and payment processing delays.
THSRC has extended half-price discounts to Jan. 31 from the original Jan. 20.
Chiang declined to say whether Taipei-based MiTAC would be penalized or whether the railway company would take other action.
The railway also has problems with entrance gates and credit-card authorization, Chiang said.
Contractors will be flown in to fix the gates because a French company installed them, he said.
■ Phone warrantees continued
Siemens AG and BenQ Corp (明基) agreed to continue warranty services for mobile phones sold under the two companies' brand names after the BenQ Mobile division, a former Siemens subsidiary, ran out of cash in September.
BenQ commissioned B2X Care Solutions GmbH to continue services for mobile phones that carry the standalone Siemens brand as well as the combined BenQ-Siemens name, Munich-based Siemens said in a statement yesterday.
■ Foreign investment hits record
Taiwan's foreign direct investment was valued at US$13.97 billion (NT$459 billion) and China-bound investment was valued at US$7.64 billion last year, both hitting record highs, according to tallies released yesterday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
The ministry approved a total of 1,846 foreign direct investment projects last year, with their combined value increasing 230.39 percent from the previous year, the tallies show.
The number of China-bound investment projects approved by the ministry totaled 1,090 last year, with their combined value increasing 27.22 percent from the previous year.
A total of 478 outbound investment projects were filed last year with a value amounting to US$4.32 billion, up 76.32 percent over the previous year.
■ Yue Yuen profits jump
Yue Yuen Industrial Holdings Ltd (裕元工業), the world's largest maker of sports shoes for brands such as Nike, Reebok and Adidas, said full-year profit rose 19 percent. The company attributed the rise to more shoes being sold abroad and the growth of its China retailing unit.
Net income rose to US$353.6 million in the 12 months to September from US$310 million a year earlier, the company said in a statement on Thursday. Sales increased to US$3.66 billion from US$2.7 billion.
Yue Yuen was founded in 1988. The family of chairman Tsai Chi-neng (蔡其能) controls Yue Yuen through Taiwan's Pou Chen Corp (寶成).
Hong Kong-listed Yue Yuen produced 196.4 million pairs of shoes in the last fiscal year, 5.6 percent more than a year earlier, and added 31 production lines, bringing the total to 373, the company said.
■ NT dollar trades lower
The New Taiwan dollar traded lower against its US counterpart yesterday because of US dollar buying from oil firms, traders said.
The local currency dropped NT$0.018 to close at NT$32.810 against the greenback on the Taipei Forex Inc.
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