Taiwan - 10 date glitches reported; government issued Goods Receipts affected

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Grassroots Information Coordination Center (GICC) : One Thread

January 5, 2000

The Tapai Times, Taiwan, by Shirley Sun, STAFF REPORTER

MOEA survey shows Y2K a non-event for industry

BITELESS BUG: Of the 5,450 companies asked to report their Y2K status to the government, just 10 minor cases of trouble were reported

"Y2K judgment day" turned out to be business as usual for Taiwan's manufacturing industry and the Central Bank of China on their first day of operations in the millennium year.

For the special task force set up by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (8g@Y3!) to watch over manufacturing industry during the millennium changeover, the first business day of the year 2000 yesterday went as smoothly as could be hoped.

"The manufacturing sector has safely passed through the test of the Y2K computer bug problem," said Lin Pei-chian (*L0vA>), director of the economic ministry's Y2K emergency reporting team.

According to Lin, the ministry asked 5,450 of the roughly 80,000 companies in the manufacturing sector to report on their post-Y2K first-day operation status. The production value of those companies accounts for roughly 75 percent of the sector total.

Ten cases were reported where computers had difficulty processing the year 2000 date, Lin said.

"However, it only resulted in some administrative change from computer control back to manual operations. No production was interrupted or disrupted," he said.

Lin said those 74,000 remaining companies would face computer checks by the targeted 5,450 companies.

But while the private manufacturing sector may have coped well, the government-issued Universal Invoice Lottery receipts (2N$@5o2<) -- which customers generally receive when buying goods, and which can be used for a lottery draw -- didn't fare so well.

Computer mistakenly printed the year 1988 instead of 2000.

"The public can still use the wrongly printed date receipts when making prize claims," Sean Chen (3/(R), administrative vice minister of the Ministry of Finance (0],F3!), said in an evening television interview.

An official in charge of Y2K operations management at the Central Bank of China (CBC, $$%!;H&f) likewise reported no problems related to the Y2K computer bug. Yesterday was also the CBC's first day of operations after the New Year.

"It's business as usual, at least until three o'clock," the official said. "However, there are some computer functions that are only used at the end of each month. Only then will we be able to say whether the system has successfully dealt with the Y2K computer management problem."

The CBC also said in a press release that international financial markets had operated properly, according to reports from the Bank of International Settlement (0j;Z2M:b;H&f) and other international financial organizations keeping an eye on the effects of Y2K.

The Taiwan stock market also celebrated its first day of the New Year Y2K glitch-free. The TWSE Index rose 307.71, or 3.6 percent, to 8,756.55, its highest close since April 1998. The rise was fuelled by a global technologies rally and an easing of millennium bug worries.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2000/01/05/story/0000018426

-- Lee Maloney (leemaloney@hotmail.com), February 23, 2000


Moderation questions? read the FAQ