■ TAIEX down 0.7 percent
The TAIEX fell 40.17 points, or 0.7 percent, to 6,018.79, on caution ahead of a protest on Saturday against China's "Anti-Secession" Law. Dealings were valued at NT$65.73 billion (US$2.09 billion). Decliners well outnumbered advancers 699 to 199, while 112 issues ended the day unchanged. "People expect the president to give a speech [on Saturday] and you never know how China might react to that," said Andrew Teng (鄧安瀾), a sales manager at Taiwan International Securities (金鼎證券). Local shares also tracked overnight declines on Wall Street, analysts said. Chipmakers led declines in the market yesterday, as chip prices will likely continue to fall as the main market for memory chips -- personal computers -- enters its weakest sales season, the second quarter, said James Huang (黃建銘), semiconductor industry analyst at SinoPac Securities (建華證券).
■ More credit cards in use
The nation saw a total of 44.6 million credit cards in circulation as last month, up 0.1 million cards compared to January, issued by totaled 52 financial institutions, according to the figures released by the Bureau of Monetary Affairs yesterday. The evolving credit balance amounted to NT$468.7 billion while the average ratio of non-performing loans (NPL) grew slightly by 0.02 percentage points to 0.59 percent in the meantime, the bureau said. Cash card in force amounted to 3.79 million issued by a total of 34 financial institutions with credit balance of NT$253.3 billion as of last month, it said. Meanwhile, cash cards' NPL increased by 0.04 percentage points from the previous month to 0.835 percent, according to the bureau. Nonetheless, the default loan ratio of each issuer remained under 3 percent, the bureau said, adding that the authorities will keep monitoring issuers' NPL control measures.
■ Music sales slow decline
Global sales of recorded music dropped 1.3 percent to US$33.6 billion last year, the slowest rate of decline in five years, according to a report released by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) yesterday. If sales of digital music and cellphone ringtones are included, the figure is equivalent to that of 2003, the report said. With the economic upturn and more releases last year, sales of music CDs in the US and UK increased by 4.5 percent and 2.8 percent respectively, the report said, adding that the two markets accounted for 47 percent of total sales. Digital music also enjoyed significant growth, with the number of tracks downloaded rising to 10 times the 2003 figure. However, sales figures in Asia and some European markets have declined by as much as 5.4 percent last year, the report said.
■ ProMOS to sell bonds
Computer memory maker ProMOS Technologies Inc (茂德科技) said its board approved plans to sell bonds and new shares to raise funds for building a plant. ProMOS plans to sell bonds convertible into shares to raise as much as US$300 million, the company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. ProMOS also plans to sell as many as 500 million new shares in the form of global depositary receipts, or GDRs, the statement said.
■ NT dollar weakens slightly
The New Taiwan dollar lost NT$0.096 to close at NT$31.39 against its US counterpart, the weakest close since Feb. 21, on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$1.01 billion.
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