Business Briefs

■ Carrefour opens in Wanhua
Carrefour Taiwan is scheduled to open its 47th store in the nation in western Taipei tomorrow, making it the first hypermarket to serve the capital's oldest area. Due to the difficulty of acquiring land in the area, the store, located on Guilin Road in Wanhua District, is one of the company's smallest outlets, spokesman Allan Tien (田中玉) said yesterday.
Carrefour it will run 24-hour services in the new outlet. The six Tesco stores it took over in June this year still maintain their round-the-clock operations although nighttime sales do not cover expenses, Tien said.
The hypermarket expects to open one more store this year in Taipei and another six next year.

■ CPC cuts gasoline prices
The Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC, 中油) announced yesterday it would cut wholesale gasoline prices by NT$0.3 per liter and diesel prices for NT$0.4 per liter. The new rates went into effect at 12am.
The adjusted retail prices for 98-octane unleaded gasoline is NT$28.2, 95-octane unleaded gasoline is NT$26.7, 92-octane unleaded gasoline is NT$26 and top-grade diesel oil is NT$22.7 per liter, CPC said in a statement.
The adjusted range is calculated by using the price change of West Texas Intermediate crude over the past week in New York trade, which was down 2.43 percent from the previous week, CPC said.

■ NT dollar declines
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against its US counterpart, declining NT$0.029 to a final closing price of NT$32.765 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$575 million.