■ Movement limit may go
The Financial Supervisory Commission is considering waiving the 7 percent limit on daily price movements for newly listed stocks for their first five trading sessions, a Chinese-language evening newspaper said yesterday, without citing its source.
The new mechanism may take effect next year at the earliest, the paper added.
The evening paper said the regulatory authorities met with representatives of securities houses yesterday morning before reaching a consensus on the waiver.
■ CSC may raise prices
China Steel Corp (中鋼) may raise domestic product prices for the fourth quarter because of strong demand, Vice President Chen Tse-hao (陳澤浩) said.
"There's room for us to raise prices," Chen said in a phone interview. "Demand in the domestic market is still good." The company is scheduled to announce fourth-quarter prices for the domestic market next Thursday, Chen said. He declined to confirm a Chinese-language newspaper report that China Steel plans to raise domestic prices by an average 4 percent, narrower than the 5.6 percent increase for the third quarter.
The company, based in Kaohsiung, has raised prices every quarter in the past two years as demand from China drove up prices of the metal.
■ Taisugar to control imports
The Ministry of Economic Affairs has decide to allow the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corp (Taisugar, 台糖) to take charge of the private sector's sugar imports from next year as an interim measure to curb hoarding by private companies, a ministry spokesman said yesterday.
The ministry made the decision as a result of sugar shortages since early this year because of stockpiling by private businesses, which are permitted to import a combined 205,000 tonnes of sugar per year, the spokesman said.
Starting next year, the state-run unit will deal with 98 percent of the 205,000 tonnes of imports as part of the government's efforts to ease soaring sugar prices, he noted.
The spokesman said the move will only be temporary and that the ministry still hopes to open the market to full private competition in the long term, in line with the rules of the World Trade Organization.
According to government statistics, Taiwan consumes about 600,000 tonnes of sugar each year, with 10 percent provided by local growers. Taisugar is already charged with importing 335,000 metric tonnes.
■ Energy use rises
Taiwan's energy consumption in the first six months of this year amounted to 52.36 million kiloliters of crude oil equivalent, up 8.6 percent from the same time last year, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) reported yesterday.
Energy supplies in the first half of this year, meanwhile, rose 13.8 percent to 66.49 million kiloliters of crude oil equivalent from last year, 98 percent of which was imported, DGBAS figures show.
Of the energy consumed, 85.7 percent was in the form of electricity (24.36 million kiloliters of crude oil equivalent) and oil products (20.50 million kiloliters of crude oil equivalent).
By sector, the increase in energy consumption was 8.4 percent in the industrial sector, 9.2 percent in the transportation sector, 6.4 percent in the household sector and 7.6 percent in the commercial sector.
■ NT dollar gains
The New Taiwan dollar continued gaining ground against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.109 to close at NT$34.070 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
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