Development plans to help boost construction

The Taiwanese Legislative Yuan yesterday passed a budget for the long-awaited ten new development plans. These plans seem particularly promising to the cement and steel industries. The NT$36.5 billion budget, originally for this fiscal year, will be used for infrastructure construction. Steel and cement industries believe their earnings will benefit from the plans next year.  According the Taiwan Cement Corp., money allocated to cement in the budget is around NT$12.5-15 billion.

"At the present stage we can only predict the volume of cement required for plans to build express highways as well as to expand the existing highways, since these projects are already in the pipeline," an official said.