Business Briefs

■ Sumitomo to boost investment
Sumitomo Chemical said yesterday that it will invest ?20 billion (US$183 million) to boost output of a key component of liquid-crystal display (LCD) panels in South Korea and Taiwan to meet rising demand. The company will build additional manufacturing lines for polarizing film at its plants in South Korea and Taiwan by the end of this year, it said in a statement. The company said it was also considering starting production of LCD components in China. "Demand for polarizing film is rapidly rising as LCD panels are being widely used for televisions, personal computers and mobile phones," Sumitomo said.

■ First Commercial sells bonds
First Commercial Bank (第一銀行), the nation's fourth-biggest lender by assets, sold NT$4.28 billion (US$128.5 million) of bonds backed by residential mortgages, the first such sale in the country. First Commercial Bank, the commercial banking arm of First Financial Holding Co (第一金控), sold the bonds to domestic investors in a private sale, according to the statement from Deutsche Bank AG, which arranged the offer. The Financial Asset Securitization Law (金融資產證券化法), passed in 2002, allows the repackaging of assets such as residential mortgages, car loans and credit-card receivables. "This is a significant milestone for the local securitization market," said Raj Shourie, head of Deutsche Bank's securitized products group in Asia.

■ Cycle show opens next week
This year's Taipei International Cycle Show is scheduled to kick off March 10 at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall, the event's organizers said on Sunday. A total of 582 exhibitors from 27 countries, including 482 domestic exhibitors and 100 from abroad, have confirmed that they will attend the annual exhibition, the organizers said. There will be a total of 1,828 booths, they said. The event also feature several industry-oriented seminars on prospects of bicycle industry and business opportunity of electronic bicycles. The exhibition, which is jointly organized by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (外貿協會) and the Taiwan Bicycle Exporters Association (中華民國自行車協會), will run through March 13.

■ Foreign buyers seek stocks
Overseas investors bought a net NT$15.2 billion of Taiwanese shares yesterday, the second-highest this year, boosting the TAIEX to its highest close in nearly 42 months. Overseas investors bought a net NT$126.05 billion of stocks on the Taiwan Stock Exchange so far this year, according to the exchange. That's helped spur a 17 percent rally in the TAIEX, the second-best performer in US dollar terms among the 59 indexes covered by Bloomberg globally. The Colombia Stock Exchange's IGBC Index is the best performer, jumping 37 percent. The record NT$17.6 billion of overseas purchases of shares was set on April 17, 2002. The second-highest session this year was on Jan. 9, when NT$16 billion changed hands, according to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.

■ Stock buys boost NT dollar
The New Taiwan dollar strengthened for the first day in three on news that overseas investors' stock purchases were the second highest this year. "Overseas money is coming in," strengthening the NT dollar, said Gary Huang, a currency trader at Union Bank of Taiwan in Taipei. The NT dollar gained NT$0.045, or 0.1 percent, to close at NT$33.320 on the Taipei foreign exchange market, on a turnover of US$722 million.