Chain stores to take taxes
The Ministry of Finance is expected to authorize the nation's five major convenience chains to collect taxes on the government's behalf by the end of August.
Vice Minister of Finance Sam Wang (王得山) on Thursday called a meeting with major chain-stores and local banks, including President Chain Store Corp's (統一超商) 7-Eleven, Hi-Life International Co (萊爾富), Family Mart Co (全家), Niko Mart Co (福客多) and OK Mart Co (富群), the ministry said.
About 6,000 stores of the five chains would be allowed to act as taxmen to take property taxes, land taxes, small business taxes and vehicle registration taxes, the ministry said. No service fees would be charged on taxpayers.
Banks lose money
The nation's banks lost a combined NT$104.5 billion before tax last year, the Ministry of Finance said, attributing the huge losses mainly to the banks' efforts to write off their bad loans, which amounted to NT$410.79 billion.
The official said that of the 52 domestic banks, 22 lost money last year.
The top five banks that made profits last year were the Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中信銀), the China Development Industrial Bank (中華開發), the Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行), TaipeiBank (台北銀行) and the Taishin International Bank.
The banks that suffered the greatest losses were the Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行), the Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化銀行), the First Commercial Bank (第一銀行), the United World Chinese Commercial Bank (世華銀行) and the Farmers Bank of China (農民銀行).
Formosa units close for repair
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) will shut two units at its Mailiao refinery for regular maintenance at the end of this month, a company official said.
Formosa Petrochemical will shut a residual fluid catalytic cracker and a residuum desulfurization unit for regular maintenance that will take a month to complete, the official said.
The residual fluid catalytic cracker can process as much as 73,000 barrels a day of heavy oil such as fuel oil into higher-priced products such as gasoline.
Yu touts digital content
Premier Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday that the nation's digital content industry production is expected to reach NT$370 billion (US$10.57 billion) over the next six years.
Yu said that the digital content industry, which includes things such as animation design, will help boost the economy and that countries around the world are now attaching great importance to the industry, with this country being no exception.
The government is vowing to nurture more talent for the digital content industry so as to upgrade the nation's competitiveness, Yu said yesterday at the opening ceremony for a digital content hall at a computer exhibition currently being held at the Taipei World Trade Center.
High-tech use ranked highly
Taiwan is one of the top 10 countries in the global rankings of national ability to use new information and communication technology, according to a global information technology report by the World Bank and the World Economic Forum.
Finland leads in the global rankings. The US and Singapore are in the second and third place respectively.
NT dollar strengthens
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded higher against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.041 to close at NT$34.751 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$319.5 million.
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