■ China investment rises
China-bound investment applications approved by Taiwan's Investment Commission rose 8.75 percent to US$782 million in the two months to February, official data showed yesterday. Applications authorized last month alone rose 6.17 percent year-on-year to US$280 million, the commission added. The number of 406 approved projects for the first two months was nearly four times higher than the combined number of proposed investments in other overseas areas, according to the commission. Approved overseas investment in areas other than China totaled US$349 million for 107 projects in January and February, down 47.23 percent from a year ago, it said. Non-China outbound investment applications last month alone fell 34.63 percent from a year ago to US$158 million, it added. Meanwhile, approved inbound investment projects rose 21.46 percent to US$355 million in January and February. In February alone, inbound investment jumped 113.48 percent to US$174 million from the same time last year, it said.
■ Booming times for real estate
The nation's real-estate market will return to normal after the removal of the current political uncertainty, driven by constant hikes in the cost of raw materials such as steel, cement and gravel, Lai Cheng-i (賴正鎰), chairman of the Taiwan Construction Development Fed-eration (台灣省建築開發公會), told a press conference yesterday. Lai made the remark while unveiling the latest statistics about the nation's residential-property market yesterday. The amount of real estate sold from the beginning of the year to last Friday has hit NT$97.8 billion, a 168-percent jump from the first quarter last year, according to the federation's statistics. Taichung City topped the chart of this hot market with NT$26 billion, followed by Taoyuan County with NT$20 billion and Taipei County's NT$18 billion.
■ Security goods on show
Thirty American safety and security equipment suppliers will present catalogs and web displays at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall from March 25 to March 27, the commercial section of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. "The advanced products on display have law enforcement, military, industrial and residential applications," said Gregory Loose, AIT's commercial section chief, in the statement. The Seventh Annual SecuTech Exhibition will feature fingerprint and facial biometric systems by Identix, as well as fire protection and detection equipment and services offered by Tyco Fire and Security Asia, Loose said. Representatives from both of these companies are scheduled to speak during SecuTech's Security 50 annual summit, he added. The US currently accounts for about 17 percent of Taiwan's highly competitive US$975-million import market in safety and security equipment, the statement said.
■ Acer to buy, cancel own stock
Acer Inc, Taiwan's third-largest computer company by market value, said it plans to buy back and cancel 50 million of its own shares to improve earnings per share. The company will buy shares at between NT$34.20 and NT$79 starting from tomorrow and ending May 22, Acer said in an e-mailed statement. Acer shares fell 6.7 percent to NT$48.90. The shares to be repurchased make up 2.4 percent of the company's outstanding stock, based on Bloomberg data. The repurchase would be the fifth since last year, the company said.
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