■ Shares follow Wall Street higher
Share prices closed 1.06 percent higher yesterday, supported by further gains on Wall Street and foreign investor interest in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), dealers said. They said TSMC and rival United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) managed a bounce after coming under pressure Tuesday on news of an Intel-Micron Technology tie-up in the booming flash memory chip market. The TAIEX rose 64.33 points to 6,123.52, the high for the day, on turnover of NT$77.48 billion (US$2.30 billion). TSMC closed up NT$1.70 at NT$59.70 and UMC added NT$0.70 at NT$18.85.
■ Taiwanese funds in HK soaring
Taiwanese companies are expected to raise HK$12 billion (US$1.55 billion) of funds in Hong Kong in the next two years, seeking to meet the capital requirements of their Chinese operations, a Taiwanese securities firm said yesterday. The figure will mark a 45 percent increase from the funds raised by Taiwan companies in the city last year and this year. The number of Taiwanese companies listed in Hong Kong will probably increase by one-third to 54 at the end of 2007, said Terence Hong, managing director of Barits Hong Kong, a unit of Taipei-based Mega Financial Group (兆豐). By the second quarter of this year, 455 Taiwan-listed electronic companies had established factories in China. Taiwanese investments in China had surged 7.7 times to HK$81.4 billion from five years ago by the second quarter, Barits said. Thirty-nine Taiwanese enterprises had listed in Hong Kong by the end of last month with a total market capitalization of US$22 billion.
■ Fire at Motech plant
Motech Industries Inc (茂迪), a maker of solar-power generating cells, said a fire at its Tainan plant damaged the factory and killed one worker. The fire, caused by a gas leakage, was put out, the company said in statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Motech said the plant is insured against fire and the company will file claim once its losses are assessed.
■ E-commerce to top NT$51bn
Taiwan's business-to-customer e-commerce is estimated to reach NT$51.07 billion this year, which constitutes 1.65 percent of the nation's retail market, the Institute for Information Industry's e-commerce research center said yesterday. The figure will further increase to NT$73.15 billion with a compound annual growth rate of 31.99 percent through 2009, the center said in a report. Travel ticket and hotel booking constitutes the largest slice of the e-commerce pie with 60.08 percent of the market, followed by financial service of 18.38 percent and sale of consumer electronics with 7.21 percent, the report said. But the significant growth does not ensure profitability. A poll conducted by the center showed that 34.61 percent of online store operators made a profit as of last month, while 12.59 percent broke even and 31.47 percent lost money. The major obstacle to developing the online commerce sector is transaction security, which worried 36.1 percent of users, while 14.5 percent said they were concerned about the quality of goods offered for sale.
■ Uni-President sells beer stake
Uni-President Enterprises Corp (統一企業), the nation's largest food conglomerate, announced yesterday that it will dispose of its 40-percent shareholding in the Chinese Zhuhai-based beer company it established with Japan's Kirin Group in 1996. The company said it has decided to focus on its core businesses.
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