SARS taking toll on stores
More than 90 percent of companies in the tourism industry and department-store business said they have been hard hit by the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), according to an opinion poll of 129 department stores, shopping centers and amusement and recreation parks released yesterday.
About 30.23 percent of the respondents said their businesses had slid by 40 percent to 50 percent over the last two months.
The poll, conducted May 5 to May 7 by the Pan Asia Human Resource Corp (泛亞人力銀行), showed 18 percent of the respondents had witnessed a fall of 30 percent to 40 percent in turnover.
Those who suffered a business downturn 50 percent to 60 percent accounted for 11 percent of the respondents, compared with 10 percent who said their operations shrank by 60 percent to 70 percent and 12 percent who said their businesses had fallen by 70 percent to 80 percent, the poll said.
Loan extensions offered
The nation's financial institutions have agreed to extend loan roll-overs to SARS-hit companies for another year, Gary Tseng (曾國烈), director general of the Bureau of Monetary Affairs, said at a press conference yesterday. But the one-year extensions apply only to businesses whose borrowings are due by the end of this year and who had paid their interest and principle on schedule in February, Tseng said.
Farmers Bank gets new chief
The Ministry of Finance yesterday appointed Lin Peng-lang (林彭郎), president of Land Bank of China (土地銀行), to serve as chairman of the Farmers Bank of China (農民銀行), it said in a statement.
Chao Chieh-chien (趙捷謙), former chairman of Farmers Bank, will be taking the chairmanship post of Small and Medium Business Credit Guarantee Fund (中小企業信保基金), the ministry said.
Farmers Bank reported non-performing loan ratio at 13 percent in December and plans to reduce that figure to under 10 percent by the end of the year by writing off NT$6 billion problem assets, said executive vice president Chen Kao-chi (陳高吉).
The bank's president, Huang Chin-chi (黃清吉), has been detained on charges of bribery in connection with loans to a real estate developer. The bank claims that a large portion of the loans in question had been written off and the rest have been classified as non-accrual assets.
Oil searched halted by SARS
Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油) and Beijing-controlled China National Offshore Oil Corp (中國海洋石油), have indefinitely delayed a joint search for oil because of the outbreak of SARS, a Chinese-language newspaper reported yesterday.
The companies had planned to drill their first exploration well in the Tainan Basin by the end of last month, the paper said, citing an unidentified official at Chinese Petroleum.
Chinese Petroleum also postponed a plan to set up its first representative office in Beijing in the first half of the year, the paper said.
UMC sales rise sharply
Local chipmaker United Microelec-tronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) said yesterday that sales last month rose sharply on the back of strong growth in the personal computer and telecommunications sectors.
UMC's April sales rose 39.73 percent to NT$7.32 billion (US$210 million) from NT$5.24 billion a year ago. The figure was up 3.68 percent from March's NT$7.06 billion.
NT dollar loses ground
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday continued to lose ground against its US counterpart, dropping NT$0.056 to close at NT$34.775 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$257 million.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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