■ Most companies file on time
As of the end of last month, a total of 1,216 companies on the local bourse filed their first-half financial statements as required, and only four failed to meet the deadline, the Financial Supervisory Commission said yesterday.
The four companies that filed late, including telecom software maker Dinttap International Corp (鼎太國際), will be fined and required to re-file their financial reports within a certain period of time. Their stocks will be banned from public trading before they meet the requirements, the commission said.
The stocks of another eight listed companies, including Bowa Bank (寶華銀行), which had net worths falling below half of their capitalization, will see their status change to the category of full-cash delivery.
The total revenue of the 686 companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange amounted to NT$5.81 trillion (US$177.3 billion) in the first half of this year, up 14.91 percent from a year ago, while pre-tax net income rose 23.28 percent to NT$589.5 billion over the same period, the commission's data showed.
The revenue of listed firms on the over-the-counter GRETAI Securities Market rose 10.07 percent to NT$668.2 billion, while the pre-tax net income doubled to NT$26.9 billion, the statistics showed.
■ Forex reserves rose in August
The nation's foreign exchange reserves totaled US$261.02 billion as of the end of August, up from US$260.37 billion in July, the Central Bank of China reported yesterday.
The increase was largely due to returns from the management of foreign exchange reserves, the bank said in a statement.
■ E-ton inks Spanish deal
E-ton Solar Tech Co (益通光能), the nation's second-largest solar cell maker, signed a letter of intent with Solaria Energia Y Medio Ambiente, a maker of solar-related devices based in Spain, to sell about 130 to 180 megawatts of solar cell to the company from next year until 2011, E-ton said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
The company did not reveal the amount the deal was worth.
Sales of E-ton jumped 241 percent to NT$1.86 billion for the first eight months this year on strong demand.
■ Chunghwa to appeal payments
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) chief financial officer Hank Wang (王漢朝) said the company would appeal a court judgment ordering it to compensate Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大) and TransAsia Telecommunications Inc (亞太電信) for fees owed to the cellular operators.
The court told Chunghwa that it must pay NT$246 million in compensation to Taiwan Mobile and TransAsia, the company reported in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange that was filed late on Monday.
■ FSC proposes Tseng for bureau
The Financial Supervisory Commission confirmed yesterday that it had proposed appointing its secretary general William Tseng (曾銘宗) to take over the long-vacant position of director general of the commission's Examination Bureau.
The proposed appointment is subject to the Cabinet's approval, the commission said.
The crucial position has been left vacant since former head Lee Chin-chen (李進誠) resigned in June last year over allegations of being involved in illegal share trading.
■ NT dollar loses ground
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against its US counterpart yesterday, declining NT$0.021 to close at NT$32.770 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$944 million.
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New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last