■ Visa transactions break records
The number of Visa credit cards in circulation last year exceeded 21 million, with annual expenditures totaling over NT$700 billion (US$21.07 billion), a 13.6-percent increase over 2002, Visa Interna-tional said in a report that was issues yesterday.
Thanks to Taiwan's economic recovery, expenditures by Visa cardholders last December amounted to NT$76 billion, a monthly high for last year, according to the report.
Taiwan's upscale credit-card market grew steadily last year. The number of Visa Infinite cards in circulation last year exceeded 7,900 and the number of Visa platinum credit cards exceeded 3.7 million.
Visa has over 1 billion cards in circulation worldwide, with the value of annual transactions amounting to US$2.7 trillion.
Total credit-card transactions rose to a record NT$999 billion last year in Taiwan, up 14 percent from NT$874 billion in 2002, the Bureau of Monetary Affairs reported last week.
■ Bad-loan ratio dropping
Lenders' bad-loan ratios fell to 6.08 percent as of Dec. 31, from 7.87 percent at the end of September, after the nation's banks accelerated write-offs of troubled loans, the central bank said in a statement yesterday.
About NT$885.8 billion of loans were classified as non-performing loans (NPL) or loans under surveillance, the central bank.
That compares with NT$1.12 trillion at the end of September.
■ APEC business leaders to meet
Twenty business leaders from member countries in APEC will attend the second meeting of the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), set to held May 11 through May 14 in Taipei, Jeffrey Koo (辜濂松), chairman of Chinatrust Financial Holding Corp (中信金控), announced on Sunday.
Koo took part in the first ABAC meeting in Miami.
ABAC, a private-sector arm of the APEC forum, has a mandate to advise APEC leaders on issues affecting business in the region.
Koo said the Taipei meeting will focus on free trade agreements in the Asia-Pacific region, strengthening financial systems in the region and realizing the agenda set for the WTO's Doha round.
■ Taipei to host flat-panel fair
The Color Imaging Industry Promotion Office (CIPO) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs said the nation will host the 2004 International Flat Panel Display Technology Fair at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall from June 9 to June 12.
The tech fair is expected to allow foreign start-ups to present new technology investment and partnership opportunities to Taiwanese industry players, CIPO said in a statement yesterday.
One recent example of such collaborations is a US start-up, LightMaster Systems Inc (LMS), that has raised US$11 million from Taiwanese companies.
LMS is a Cupertino, California-based liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) maker.
"We hope to see many more examples like LMS and we expect that the fair will provide these opportunities for foreign firms," CIPO director Chiou Hwa-liang said in a statement.
■ NT dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar rose as G& finance ministers called for flexibility in exchange rates, feeding expectations they may oppose sales of currencies by Asian central banks.
The NT dollar gained 0.2 percent to close at NT$33.227 against its US counterpart on the Taipei foreign exchange market. That was its strongest close since July 22, 2002.
Turnover was US$828 million.
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