■ Shares slightly up
Share prices closed up 0.55 percent yesterday as political concerns offset an early rally driven by Wall Street's overnight gains amid tame US inflation data, dealers said.
The TAIEX closed up 36.83 points at 6,733.46, on turnover of NT$118.86 billion (US$3.63 billion).
"Large-cap stocks managed further gains, suggesting increased interest from foreign investors amid a firming local currency," said Samson Chueh, an assistant vice president with Fuhwa Securities Corp (復華證券).
While bellwether technology stocks followed the direction set by their counterparts in the US, some sectors which had been lagging behind the broader market, such as tourism, staged a recovery, he said.
Decliners outnumbered gainers 518 to 507, with 129 stocks unchanged.
■ CPC hikes gas price
State-run Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC, 中油) announced yesterday that it would hike the prices of liquefied natural gas (LNG) by an average of 15 percent due to rising import costs, effective today.
After the adjustment, industrial natural gas will be NT$13.0366 per cubic meter for mixed LNG mixed, including CPC's product and an imported one, or NT$14.5014 for imported LNG, according to a company statement.
The prices for LNG retailers are NT$12.15 and NT$13.52 per cubic meter. LNG for cogeneration will be NT$12.0980 NT$13.4573 per cubic meter. Prices of LNG for generating electricity range from NT$11.1719 to NT$13.0339 per cubic meter, depending on the season, according to CPC.
■ Lenovo poaches Dell staff
Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想), the world's third-largest manufacturer of personal computers, hired two executives from Dell Inc to head the company's operations in Asia and Japan.
David Miller, who headed the China business of Dell, the world's largest PC maker, was named president of Lenovo Asia, the Chinese company said yesterday in a statement. Sotaro Amano, former corporate director of Japan sales for Dell, will be president of Lenovo Japan Ltd.
■ Customs seizes fake goods
Customs agents have seized counterfeit fashion items and pirated video games in recent months worth a combined NT$20 million, a spokesman for the Taipei Customs Bureau under the Ministry of Finance said yesterday.
According to the spokesman, customs agents seized 1,713 items of fake brand-name products, including leather goods, sunglasses and clothes since customs agents began stepping up inspections of international express delivery packages in June. The pirated products had a market value of NT$11 million, he said.
A total of 6,800 fake Sony video game disks were nabbed by Taipei Customs Bureau agents on Monday -- the second seizure of its kind after 1,626 bootleg X-Box video game disks were seized, the spokesman said, noting that the two seizures were worth more than NT$10 million.
■ Biometric USB drive launched
SanDisk Corp yesterday launched SanDisk Cruzer Profile, a portable, high-speed USB flash drive with finger identification technology embedded in the device to ensure data security to local users, a company statement said.
Through a built-in biometric fingerprint scanner, data stored in the product can be accessed with the swipe of fingerprints of designated users, the statement said.
■ NT remains firm
The New Taiwan dollar maintained strength against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.122 to close at NT$32.627 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$967 million.
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Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
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