Taiwan govt to sell China Airlines shares for high speed rail - legislator
TAIPEI (XFNews) - The government is planning to sell 300 million shares in China Airlines (2610.TW) to raise some TWD4.50 billion for investment in Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp, an official at the office of an opposition legislator said.
The China Aviation Development Foundation (CADF) recently decided to sell the shares, or more than 8.6% of the carrier's shares outstanding, reducing its stake from its current 66.3% holding, said the official at the office of Lai Shyi-bao, a parliamentarian with the opposition Kuomintang.
"A department head of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications acknowledged such a CADF plan in response to Lai's query this morning," the official said.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Ling-san also chairs the CADF.
Officials with both the CADF and China Airlines were not immediately available for comment.
Lai raised the issue just after Premier Frank Hsieh's statement that his administration will study the feasibility of state-owned companies expanding their investments in Taiwan High Speed Rail.
In particular, the administration will look into the possibility of overriding a parliamentary resolution that caps investment by state-owned companies at 12%, compared with the 20% generally accepted previously, Hsieh had said.
China Airlines closed up TWD0.05 at 15.15.