CAL ups cargo flights
China Airlines Co (CAL,華航), Taiwan's largest carrier, will add four extra weekly cargo flights to the US starting on Monday and until mid-November to meet demand.
The airline will operate the extra flights with Boeing 747-400 jetliners to Los Angeles to clear up a backlog of cargo as the result of recent closure of ports on the US West Coast.
"The accumulated cargo needs 10 more weeks to ship out," the airline said in a statement. The added flights can carry 440 tonnes of cargo a week, the company said.
The company now operates 27 regular weekly cargo flights to the US.
Taiwan exports NT$1.5 billion (US$43 million) of computers and other products to the West Coast each day, with NT$900 million transported by sea and the rest by air, Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Yi-fu (林義夫) said yesterday.
Fubon posts Q3 profit
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), which owns Taiwan's largest non-life insurer, posted third-quarter net income of about NT3.56 billion (US$102 million).
The figure was derived by subtracting first-half from nine-month earnings of about NT$8.6 billion released by the company.
The company, which has banking, insurance and brokerage businesses, didn't give year-earlier comparative figures. The stock started trading as a holding company in December.
Customs forum to be held
Taiwan is hosting a customs program to provide intensive training in customs-related affairs to officials from member countries of the APEC forum, the Ministry of Finance reported yesterday.
The program, dubbed the APEC Customs Academy, began Thursday and runs until Nov. 7. It represents the first time ever that any Taiwan government agency has hosted a training program for officials of APEC member states.
In addition to 18 officials and specialists from Taiwan, 13 other officials from Brunei, Chile, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam are attending the 21-day seminar, ministry officials said.
A number of specialists from the US and Australia are attending the program as lecturers, according to the ministry officials.
The program will focus discussions mainly on border control and on making customs procedures more convenient and efficient, the officials said.
New Taiwan dollar falls
The New Taiwan dollar fell after the central bank sold the local currency to curb foreign speculators betting that the currency would rise from a 15-year low, a trader said.
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday closed down NT$0.078 at NT$34.928 on the Taipei forex market. Turnover was US$668 million, down from the previous day's US$868 million.
"The central bank guided the New Taiwan dollar to close lower today to make a statement that its currency will not rise sharply as some foreign traders have speculated," said Dick Liu, a currency trader at Shanghai Commercial & Savings Bank (上海商銀).
Speculators may have been behind the gain of the last two days, a Chinese-language newspaper reported, citing unnamed sources.
The trading volume of the New Taiwan dollar nondeliverable forwards recently quadrupled to US$400 million, the report said.
"Some foreign currency traders have obviously bought Taiwan dollar forward contracts, betting the local currency will bounce up from its 15-year low," Liu said.
George Chou (周阿定), director general of central bank's foreign exchange department, said the local currency is stable and the central bank sees no indication of speculative "attacks."
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