Sat, Jun 07, 2003 page11

• Business briefs

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  US labor dispute stalls ships

  Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮) has been unable to unload 11 ships carrying tons of cargo amid a labor dispute involving longshoremen at several ports along the US's East Coast.

  The ships, carrying merchandise to be delivered to retailers, including Costco Wholesale Corp and Wal-Mart Stores Inc, remain at docks at the Port of New York and New Jersey. Others were diverted to Canada or Panama.

  International Longshoremen's Association members have refused to handle Evergreen cargo since May 14 after the company refused to recognize a 3-2 vote in December to join the ILA by five office workers.

  Chips off the old block imported

  Taiwan plans to import 8.1 million tonnes of gravel from China over one year as part of efforts to ease the country's shortage of construction material, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.

  The ministry agreed on Thursday after finishing marathon negotiations with construction- sector representatives to set the annual gravel import volume from China at 8.1 million tons for the year beginning this month.

  Since January, domestic gravel importers have filed applications with the ministry's Board of Foreign Trade for imports of Chinese gravel amounting to 63.5 million tonnes, according to board officials.

  Taiwan began to import Chi-nese gravel in 2001, when the nation's imports for the year totalled 1.8 million tonnes. The figure surged to 9 million tons last year.

  Quanta reports sales rise 79.8%

  Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), the nation's largest notebook computer maker, said last month's sales rose 79.8 percent from a year earlier.

  Sales rose to NT$20.7 billion (US$596 million) from NT$11.5 billion. Sales increased from NT$20.6 billion in the previous month.

  Compal predicts laptop growth

  Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶電腦), the world's second-largest maker of notebook computers, expects new PC chips from Intel Corp to help lift global laptop sales by about 20 percent, a local newspaper said, citing the company's president.

  Price cuts for Intel's Centrino chips that connect notebook computers to the Internet with a radio link should help stimulate demand, the report said, citing Compal president Ray Chen (陳瑞聰).

  Growth in sales of notebook computers this year will exceed the 5 percent rate for desktop computers, the report quoted Chen as saying.

  Compal, which also makes products such as cellphones, last year posted NT$117.2 billion (US$3.4 billion) in sales, up 51 percent from 2001.

  No Iraqi oil order yet

  Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油) said yesterday that it will not bid for the first post-president Sad-dam Hussein crude, but is interested in signing a long-term contract with Iraq.

  "As a state-run company, we are conservative and want stable oil supply. Therefore, we sign long-term purchase contracts - sometimes longer than five years -- with foreign oil companies," a company official said, asking not to be named.

  "After the war, Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization [SOMO] is just starting to operate. We will watch what negotiation terms SOMO gives to other importers and how much flexibility it has. If it can give us preferential terms, we do not rule out signing long-term contract with SOMO," she said by phone.

  NT dollar holds steady

  The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded unchanged against its US counterpart at NT$34.665 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$346 million.

  Agencies
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