Taiwan to review TIMC funding case after lawmakers' rejection

TAIPEI, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Taiwan's Economics Ministry said it will discuss with the cabinet whether state-backed chipmaker TIMC should receive state capital, after a committee of lawmakers rejected TIMC's application on Wednesday. The ministry gave in-principal approval to Taiwan Innovation Memory Co's request for about T$5 billion ($154 million) from the government late on Tuesday. However, the parliamentary economic committee said the government should avoid wasting state funds and demanded that the cabinet's National Development Fund not inject capital into TIMC, formerly known as Taiwan Memory. "We will pass this matter to the Executive Yuan and then we will discuss again," said Woody Duh, head of the ministry's industrial develoment bureau. Critics say TIMC has moved at a snail's pace since its formation in March, and that the timing for restructuring of the island's DRAM sector has passed as chipmakers are seeing narrower losses as a result of recovering chip prices. Earlier this year, Taiwan's government said it had allocated state funds to help the island's dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chipmakers, who could submit restructuring proposals, as they had been struggling in the worst-ever industry downturn. TIMC and Powerchip submitted proposals to seek state funds. (US$1=T$32.4) (Reporting by Argin Chang and Baker Li; Editing by Chris Lewis) (([e-mail]; [phone]; Reuters messaging: [e-mail])) Keywords: DRAM/TAIWAN (If you have a query or comment on this story, send an email to [e-mail]) COPYRIGHT Copyright Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved.

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