■ Shares close higher
Shares closed 0.40 percent higher yesterday, extending Tuesday's technical rebound in the wake of an upward turn on Wall Street overnight and a general recovery on world markets, dealers said.
However, the rise was capped by profit-taking amid lingering caution over the sustainability of such technically driven gains, they said.
The TAIEX added 29.83 points at 7,480.89. Turnover was NT$122.49 billion (US$3.71 billion). Risers led decliners 619 to 520, with 194 stocks unchanged.
■ CDIC to help Bowa, China United
Central Deposit Insurance Corp (CDIC, 中央存保) said yesterday that it has dispatched its personnel to supervise and provide assistance for blacklisted Bowa Bank (寶華銀行) and China United Trust and Investment Corp (中聯信託).
CDIC's personnel will review the two financial institutions' important proposals to be discussed in their board meetings and will attend the meetings if necessary, CDIC president Johnson Chen (陳戰勝) told the Taipei Times in a telephone interview.
CDIC will also supervise the two's capital flows, the progress of recapitalization and their plans to look for new investors to improve corporate finance, he said.
Bowa Bank and China United are two of the four troubled financial institutions blacklisted by the government's restructuring fund, which took over the management of Taitung Business Bank (台東企銀) in December, as well as Enterprise Bank of Hualien (花蓮企銀) and The Chinese Bank (中華銀行) in January.
■ New investment for Powertech
Powertech Technology Inc (力成科技), one of the nation's leading memory chip testing and packaging service providers, said yesterday that chipmakers Elpida Memory Inc and Toshiba Corp agreed to invest US$20 million each in the company following in the steps of Intel Corp.
The two Japanese companies will make the investments through buying corporate bonds issued by Powertech. The investments would complete the Taiwanese company's plan to raise NT$3.5 billion in bonds that can be converted into shares at a later date to expand capacities.
Last Friday, Intel announced it had bought NT$2.11 billion worth of Powertech's corporate bonds.
■ Taiwan ranks high in report
In a MasterIndex of Women's Advancement report released by MasterCard Worldwide yesterday, Taiwan ranked third with a score of 82.19, compared to 72.32 a year ago. The nation was only behind New Zealand's 89.85 and the Philippines' 87.43, the report said.
This is the third year that the organization has released the survey of 13 Asia-Pacific markets.
The region as a whole showed that women's socio-economic advancement dropped slightly from a score of 76.11 last year to 72.09 this year.
The result shows that while women continue to steadily advance in labor force participation and higher education, compared to men they are less bullish in relation to holding managerial positions.
"This ... negatively affects the scores pertaining to the self-perception of women, resulting in a lower index score for certain markets," said Georgette Tan (陳俐仙), vice president of communications in Asia/Pacific, the Middle East and Africa with MasterCard.
■ NT dollar drops
The New Taiwan dollar fell to the lowest against its US counterpart in more than a week on speculation foreign investors will sell the currency after cutting holdings of local stocks for four straight days.
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