Morgan trims forecast
Investment banker JP Morgan Chase & Co said yesterday it has trimmed its economic growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 3.2 percent from from an earlier projection 3.5 percent, due to the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, in the region.
JP Morgan said in a report that the economic fallout of SARS would keep the country's second quarter GDP flat on year. Growth projections for later quarters have been kept unchanged.
"Given Taiwan's geographical proximity and economic ties with China and Hong Kong, the SARS impact is likely to ripple onto Taiwan through travel cutbacks as well as dampen consumer confidence," the report said.
JP Morgan, however, said the outbreak in Taiwan was "nowhere near as harsh as that in Hong Kong or Singapore."
Chipmakers post sales
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufact-uring Co (TSMC, 台積電) and United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world's largest suppliers of made-to-order chips, said first-quarter sales rose on demand for their advanced technology.
TSMC said its first-quarter sales rose by 9.9 percent from a year ago to NT$39.3 billion (US$1.1 billion). UMC said its sales in the same period rose by 47.2 percent to NT$17.9 billion.
TSMC, which will post first-quarter net income on April 29, continues to expect second-quarter sales to rise from the first three months of this year, it said in a statement.
UMC, which will post quarterly results on April 30, didn't give second-quarter expectations.
China Steel's profit jumps
China Steel Corp (中鋼) said pretax profit surged almost sevenfold after the nation's biggest steelmaker raised prices on a recovery in demand and economic expansion in China pushed up international prices.
Profit before taxes in the first quarter jumped to NT$10.8 billion (US$310 million) from NT$1.57 billion a year earlier. Sales rose to NT$30.4 billion from NT$21.1 billion.
The company is projecting pretax profit of NT$36.5 billion on sales of NT$113.4 billion for 2003.
Agency supports 2:5:8 Plan
Fitch Ratings, an international rating agency, has assessed the progress of plans to restore the health of the nation's troubled banking sector and has concluded that what the country calls a "2:5:8 Plan" is achievable, but only if implemented without further delay and without further shocks to the economy.
Under the proposed plan, domestic banks are to reduce their bad loan ratios to 5 percent or below total loans and raise their capital ratios to a minimum 8 percent by June 2005.
As part of the plan, the government has offered a bank rescue package including public funds totalling NT$908 billion, or around 10 percent of the gross domestic product.
Fitch said it expects domestic banks to sell around NT$1 trillion of bad loans in order to meet the 2:5:8 Plan targets.
China may lift tariffs on steel
China may remove tariffs on 18 types of steel products imported from Taiwan from May 23, a local newspaper reported, citing unidentified officials from the steel industry and the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
The tariffs range between 3 percent and 23.3 percent, the paper said.
China will also increase its import quota for Taiwan's hot-rolled steel to an annual 350,000 tons from 170,000 tons, it said.
NT Dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded higher against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.006 to close at NT$34.812 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$254 million.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last