Business Briefs

TAIEX bucks the trend

Taiwan share prices closed up 0.14 percent yesterday after recovering from early falls driven by a Wall Street downturn, dealers said.

The weighted index closed up 11.09 points at 7,876.37, off a low of 7,761.93 and a high of 7,888.15, on turnover of NT$108.05 billion (US$3.41 billion).

Decliners outnumbered risers 1,012 to 793 with 422 stocks unchanged. A total of 36 stocks closed limit-up while 25 were limit-down.

The electronics sector was up 0.91 percent, while the cement sector was down 2.06 percent and the textile sector fell 1.46 percent.

The paper sector was down 0.93 percent, the plastics/petrochemical sector was down 0.83 percent, financials fell 0.65 percent and the food sector slipped 0.53 percent.

The construction sector was up 0.40 percent.

"From a regional perspective, the Taipei bourse stood out as an outperformer," said Arch Shih (施博元), an analyst at Taiwan International Securities (金鼎證券), as he noted big falls on other bourses.

Helping offset concerns over the US economic outlook were expectations that more funds could flow into the local bourse because of the Taiwan dollar's recent strength, he said.

United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) fell NT$0.30 to NT$17.90, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) was down NT$0.50 at NT$61.50.

Chi Mei offloads risk

Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電), the nation's second-largest maker of liquid-crystal displays (LCD), will sell US$1.22 billion of its account receivables to Taipei Fubon Bank (台北富邦銀行) to reduce the risk of payment defaults.

Chi Mei and Fubon Bank signed the agreement yesterday, the Tainan-based LCD maker said in a statement on its Web site. Taipei Fubon Bank is a unit of Taipei-based Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控).

APTC appoints new director

The board of local telecoms operator Asia-Pacific Telecom Co (APTC, 亞太電信) yesterday elected a new director to fill the gap left by outgoing chairman Springfield Lai (賴春田), the firm said.

Lin Po-fong (林伯峰), president of Taiwan Shin Kong Security Co (台灣新光保全), a subsidiary of financial group Shin Kong Group (新光集團), will take the vacancy left by Lai, said APTC. Shin Kong holds approximately 1.36 percent of the shares of APTC.

That was the latest shake up in the telecoms company's boardroom after Sophia Chiu (邱純枝), vice president of an APTC shareholder TECO Electric and Machinery Co (東元電機), succeeded Lai as the firm's new chairperson last month.

The troubled telecoms company plans to halve its capital to write off losses by the end of next month as well as sell new shares to raise NT$20 billion from interested investors.

Bank audit reveal more debt

Agricultural Bank of China's (中國農業銀行) bad loan ratio rose to 23.64 percent by the end of last year after audits identified more bad debts, Caijing magazine reported, citing a source it did not identify.

Beijing-based Agricultural Bank had 816 billion yuan (US$114 billion) of non-performing loans as of Dec. 31, up from 732 billion yuan a year earlier, the magazine said.

The bank is awaiting a government bailout that may be as much as US$47 billion. The nation's sovereign wealth fund will invest a combined US$67 billion in Agricultural Bank and China Development Bank (國家開發銀行), vice finance minister Li Yong (李勇) said in November.

NT dollar dips slightly

The New Taiwan dollar yesterday fell NT$0.040 to trade at NT$31.740 against the greenback on turnover of US$940 million.