Wholesale gas prices cut
Both Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石油) yesterday announced they would lower wholesale gasoline and diesel prices today to reflect falling international crude oil prices.
These refiners will cut the price of 98 RON, 95 RON and 92 RON grades of unleaded gasoline by NT$0.50 a liter, and diesel by NT$0.20 a liter, according to statements issued by the companies.
Crude oil prices have fallen about 9 percent in the past three months on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Yageo forecasts return to profits
Yageo Corp (國巨), the country's biggest maker of parts to control the flow of electricity in computers and mobile phones, expects to return to profit this year after six quarters of losses because sales are rising.
"We are confident in the second half of this year we'll be back to profitability," president Remko Rosman said in a TV interview with Bloomberg..
"For the next year, I'm very confident that we'll be back to profitability as well," he said.
Compared with this year, Yageo's sales will rise by one-tenth next year, helping gross margin, or the percentage of sales left after production costs, exceed 30 percent, Rosman said.
Yageo's sales have been impro-ving with personal computer makers in China, where revenue in the third quarter rose by about 25 percent from the second quarter.
Growth has lagged in Yageo's sales to mobile-phone makers in China, which reported excess inventory during the SARS epidemic earlier this year when few people went out shopping.
The company cut its second-quarter loss by more than 80 percent to NT$375 million from NT$2.4 billion in the same period a year ago.
Sales rose by 32 percent to NT$2.9 billion from NT$2.2 billion.
"Taiwan Day" in Milan
China External Trade Development Council chairman Hsu Chih-jen
(許志仁) presided yesterday over the opening of "Taiwan Day" activities sponsored by the Taiwan Trade Center in Milan, Italy.
Nearly 100 representatives from Milan's business and industrial community and 40 businessmen from Taiwan's hardware sector took part in the event, during which Hsu led the Taiwanese delegates in product presentations to promote business opportunities.
Hsu said that he would sign a cooperation accord later the same day with the chief of the Milan Chamber of Commerce.
The Milan visit was also aimed at luring Italian businesses to participate in the 2003 Taiwan Business Alliance Conference to be held next month in Taipei, he said.
Before flying into Milan late Wednesday, Hsu had visited Poland, Hungry and Germany and met with representatives from the environmental protection, solar energy and opto-electrical industries in the three countries.
He is scheduled to arrive in Slovakia today to chair a bilateral economic cooperation conference.
NT dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday turned higher against its US counterpart, moving up NT$0.033 to close at NT$34.058 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$797 million.
UBS AG in a report recommends investors buy the NT dollar against Singapore's currency as overseas investors put more money into Taiwan's stock market.
It ``makes sense'' to buy the NT dollar against the Singapore dollar ``on the back of Singapore's data and the continued foreign inflows into Taiwan,'' Bhanu Baweja, a currency strategist at UBS in Singapore wrote in the report.
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