vnunet.com Asia news wrap: 12 December 2005

Asia news wrap: 12 December 2005

A group of 16 nations, including Japan, Korea and Taiwan, plan to protest against the alleged abuse of World Trade Organisation (WTO) anti-dumping procedures by India and other countries tomorrow, according to a a Taiwanese government minister cited in local media reports. 

Anti-dumping actions, which aim to prevent foreign companies from harming competitors by selling products below manufacturing cost, have frequently been used to curb the sales activities of high-tech manufacturers in Asia.

Memory chips and opto-electronic products have been particularly badly affected, according to the reports.

Steven Chen, Taiwan's vice economic minister, said that India has filed more anti-dumping charges than any other nation, according to local press reports summarised by the China Economic News Service (CENS) in Taipei. 

Chen singled out India for filing bogus anti-dumping charges as a form of harassment to protect its own domestic manufacturers, according to CENS.

Taiwan will lead the move to revise the WTO's anti-dumping regulations at a WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong, which runs from December 13 to 18. 

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Anticipated consumer spending during the upcoming Chinese New Year holiday is driving unprecedented sales at Asian chip makers, helping to flatten out seasonal demand cycles in the semiconductor industry.

"Most Taiwanese semiconductor companies reported outstanding November revenues, coming in well ahead of forecasts on the back of holiday demand resulting from the earlier Chinese New Year in 2006," KGI Securities reported in Taipei today. 

The Chinese New Year celebration, akin in scale to the western Christmas, falls on different dates in January or February each year depending on a lunar calendar.

KGI said that sales at chip designers, manufacturers and packagers in Taiwan grew three to five per cent from October to November; sales normally see a seasonal decline during the fourth quarter.

The report comes as estimated yearly revenue for the global semiconductor industry hit a record high of $235bn.

The report, released on Friday by Gartner, showed rocketing revenue at Asian semiconductor makers like Samsung and Hynix on demand for the flash memory used in portable products like Apple's iPod.

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Dell may have severely overestimated demand for LCD monitors over the Christmas and new year period, according to a report in a Taiwanese newspaper today.

Citing unidentified sources, the Commercial Times said that Dell had recently cancelled orders for 600,000 LCD panels. The orders were placed with manufacturers in Taiwan and Korea, and had been scheduled for delivery to Dell in November and December, the report said.

As the world's largest PC vendor, Dell's orders from component manufacturers are an important indicator of global demand.

In August, Gartner forecast that global shipments of large LCD panels would reach 208 million units in 2005. The figures include PC monitors, notebook PCs, and LCD TVs. 

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