■ More exports to Korea desired
In an effort to lower the nation's big trade deficit with South Korea, the semi-official Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會) is inviting local businesses to join a delegation that will visit South Korea in September to seek trade opportunities, a TAITRA official said yesterday. South Korea has become the second-largest source of Taiwan's foreign trade deficit behind Japan in recent years. According to Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) statistics, Taiwan's exports to South Korea amounted to US$5.35 billion last year, while imports reached US$11.63 billion. In the first quarter of this year, Taiwan's exports to South Korea amounted to US$1.22 billion, marking a growth of 1.6 percent over the year-earlier level. However, imports posted a surge of 18.2 percent at US$3.13 billion, the tallies show. To reduce the deficit, MOFA and TAITRA have mapped out various projects aimed at expanding exports to South Korea, including the September trade-promotion visit, the official said.
■ Many cars, scooters in Taiwan
Official statistics show that at the end of last month, every household in Taiwan owned an average 0.9 cars and 1.7 motorcycles or scooters, while there were 6.52 million vehicles, excluding motorbikes, on the roads. According to statistics of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, at the end of April, every 1,000 households had 901.5 automobiles and 1,789.5 motorbikes or scooters on average. Of the 6.52 million cars, 2.59 million, or 39.9 percent, were over 10 years old, marking the largest automobile group in the country. The second-largest group was cars aged between seven years and 10 years.
■ Meeting will tackle redemptions
Regulators will meet with investment trust companies to prevent a reoccurrence of huge bond fund redemptions that shook the market a year ago, a Chinese-language newspaper reported, without saying where it got the information. Selling pressure may emerge as companies may want to redeem investments before announcing semi-annual financial reports, the Taipei-based newspaper said. Another interest rate increase in US this month may trigger further redemption risks for the country's NT$1.8 trillion (US$57 billion) bond funds industry, the report said. Companies including China Motor Corp (中華汽車) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦) have redeemed more than NT$1 billion from bond funds over the past 10 days, the report said. Taiwan's central bank threatened to take steps last July to bolster investor confidence when withdrawals forced five funds to halt redemptions.
■ Shih to set up Indian ventures
Stan Shih (施振榮), former chairman of Acer Group, plans to set up ventures with Indian software companies to produce digital products for use in the home and office, a Chinese-language newspaper reported. The idea is to combine Taiwan manufacturers' computer software expertise with Indian companies' capability in developing software, the newspaper said, without identifying Shih's potential partners. Shih, 61, retired on Dec. 31 from Acer, which he founded more than 29 years ago. He remains on the board of Acer and recently started iD SoftCapital Inc (智融), a venture capital firm.
■ NT dollar lower
The New Taiwan dollar traded lower against its US counterpart yesterday, declining NT$0.027 to close at NT$31.390 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$646 million, down from US$811 million the previous day.
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