Business Briefs

Foreign reserves grow
The nation's foreign-currency reserves rose to US$182.21 billion last month, which is an increase of US$5.52 billion from June and a growth of US$20.55 billion from the end of last year, the central bank said in a statement. The figure is the third-highest in the world after Japan and China.

The central bank said the growth of foreign-exchange holdings is partly due to state-run Chunghwa Telecom Co's (中華電信) fundraising of US$1.6 billion through through its initial public offering in New York last month, as well as Cabinet's Development Fund's selling part of its share holdings in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturer Co (台積電) worth US$822 million on Wall Street.

Another reason for the increase was the influx of foreign funds for local investments and interest gains from the central bank's foreign-exchange deposits in overseas banks.

CPI falls in July
Consumer prices dropped 0.98 percent last month from the year before as clothing costs fell, official data showed yesterday.

The consumer price index (CPI) for last month fell 0.42 percent from June, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said.

In the seven months to last month, CPI fell 0.28 percent.

The wholesale price index last month rose 2.43 percent from a year earlier and was up 3.32 percent for the first seven months of this year, DGBAS said.

Taipei-Brunei flights resume
Royal Brunei Airlines yesterday resumed its Taipei-Brunei flight services, which were suspended in April due to the SARS outbreak.

The airline is resuming its Boeing 757 Taipei-to-Brunei flights departing at 11am on Tuesdays and Fridays, and its Brunei-to-Taipei flights departing at 3:15pm on Mondays and Thursdays, said Pan Chian-hua (潘建華), president of Royal Brunei Airlines' Taiwan operations.

The flight between Taipei and Brunei takes about three and a half hours. About 100,000 tourists from Taiwan visit Brunei each year.

LCD industries growing
The Kaohsiung Export Processing Zone (KEPZ) has become an important base for manufacturing liquid-crystal display (LCD) and its related products, an official of the zone's administration said yesterday.

The official said manufacturers of LCD and its related industries invested NT$1.21 billion (US$35.2 million) in the zone last year. The same kind of investors spent NT$654 million in new projects and NT$3.13 billion in expanding their production facilities in the zone in the first half of this year.

Business revenues received by the LCD and related industries in the zone amounted to NT$47.77 billion last year and NT$20.41 billion in the first half of this year, the official said.

Compal says Q2 profits rose
Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶), the world's No. 2 maker of notebook computers, had a bigger-than-expected 35 percent increase in second-quarter profit after it cut costs by moving more production to China.

The company's net income rose to NT$2.6 billion (US$75 million) from NT$1.9 billion a year ago. Sales rose 9 percent to NT$31 billion.

Meanwhile, Silicon Integrated Systems Corp (矽統), the world's third-largest maker of chipsets for personal computers, said sales last month rose 9 percent from a year ago to NT$1.2 billion ($34.9 million).

AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), the world's fourth- largest maker of flat-panel displays for electronic products, said July sales rose 30 percent from a year ago to NT$7.9 billion ($229.5 million).

NT dollar weakens
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday turned weak against its US counterpart, falling NT$0.036 to close at NT$34.466 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.

Turnover was US$635 million.