■ 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.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
STILL UNCLEAR: Several aspects of the policy still need to be clarified, such as whether the exemptions would expand to related products, PwC Taiwan warned The TAIEX surged yesterday, led by gains in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), after US President Donald Trump announced a sweeping 100 percent tariff on imported semiconductors — while exempting companies operating or building plants in the US, which includes TSMC. The benchmark index jumped 556.41 points, or 2.37 percent, to close at 24,003.77, breaching the 24,000-point level and hitting its highest close this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data showed. TSMC rose NT$55, or 4.89 percent, to close at a record NT$1,180, as the company is already investing heavily in a multibillion-dollar plant in Arizona that led investors to assume
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