Sun, Nov 09, 2008 page11

• Business Quick Take

  • STAFF WRITER, WITH AGENCIES
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  ■ECONOMY

  Cabinet to provide loans

  Taiwan’s Cabinet plans to provide NT$900 billion (US$27.4 billion) in loans to help businesses through the economic slowdown, the Chinese-language Commercial Times reported yesterday, citing Minister without Portfolio Chu Yun-peng (朱雲鵬). Under the plan, the Cabinet will first provide small and medium enterprises with NT$300 billion in loans and then start coordinating with seven state-run banks next month to offer NT$600 billion in loans to large corporations over the next two years, the report said. The Cabinet’s loan plan is part of the government’s effort to help companies obtain credit lines from banks and stave off layoffs. On Oct. 31, the Cabinet approved a short-term job-creation plan that aims to offer up to 56,000 jobs by June.

  ■ECONOMY

  Export forecast lowered

  Taiwan’s Bureau of Foreign Trade has reduced its export growth forecast for this year from 10 percent to 8 percent after exports declined in September and last month. Bureau Director-General Huang Chih-peng (黃志鵬) also said on Friday that growth next year was forecast at 8 percent, with a trade surplus of US$10 billion. Citing customs statistics, Huang said that Taiwan’s exports last month totaled US$20.81 billion, down US$1.88 billion, or 8.3 percent, from the same month last year.

  ■AVIATION

  EVA to lead across Strait

  EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空), the nation’s second-largest air carrier, will be able to fly a total of 23 charter passenger flights to China each week, along with its affiliate UNI Airways Corp (立榮航空), the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday, citing the Civil Aeronautics Administration. China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空), the nation’s largest carrier, and its subsidiary, Mandarin Airlines Ltd (華信航空), will run a total of 22 charter passenger flights to China weekly. Their smaller rival, TransAsia Airways Corp (復興航空), will operate nine weekly flights, the report said. The new flights arrangement came after Taiwan and China signed an agreement on Tuesday in Taipei that allows the number of charter passenger flights to triple from 36 to 108 per week.

  ■ENERGY

  Chavez hails Russia venture

  Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez inaugurated his country’s first Venezuelan-Russian offshore natural gas project on Friday, hailing his country’s increasingly close energy cooperation with Russia as a counterweight to US imperialism. Donning hard hats, Chavez and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin mingled with workers from Venezuela’s government-controlled oil company and Russia’s state-run gas giant, Gazprom, as exploration began at a Gulf of Venezuela drilling platform. Gazprom won the contract to help develop two natural gas blocks in the gulf in 2005.

  ■AVIATION

  Carrier, pilots ink pay pact

  Singapore Airlines Ltd, the world’s largest carrier by market value, yesterday reached an agreement with pilots on pay and other benefits after a year of negotiations. The accord “forms the basis of a Points of Agreement that has been signed,” Singapore Airlines spokesman Stephen Forshaw said in an e-mailed statement that called the wage negotiations “challenging.” Singapore Airlines on Thursday reported that quarterly profit fell 36 percent, the biggest decline in more than three years to S$323.8 million (US$219 million), after it paid more for jet fuel and filled fewer seats.
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