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TAIEX follows Wall Street down

Taiwanese shares closed 0.58 percent lower yesterday as Wall Street's overnight weakness prompted investors to take profits following a recent rally in the local bourse, dealers said.

The weighted index closed down 49.32 points at 8,412.76, off a low of 8,367.45 and a high of 8,473, on turnover of NT$166.73 billion (US$5.43 billion).

Advancers led decliners 1,201 to 758, with 377 stocks unchanged.

For the week to yesterday, the weighted index closed up 304.05 points or 3.75 percent at 8,412.76 after a 2.95 percent advance a week earlier.

Average daily turnover stood at NT$170.95 billion, compared with NT$117.86 billion a week ago.

The benchmark index gained 891.63 points last month, up 11.86 percent from the end of January.

SinoPac to sell US subsidiary

SinoPac Holdings Corp (永豐金控) plans to sell its US-based subsidiary Far Eastern National Bank (遠東國民銀行) for US$500 million, local media reported yesterday.

SinoPac executive vice president Richard Chang (張立荃) said that the company's board decided to liquidate its wholly owned subsidiary, which has a net worth of US$200 million, since the local regulator disallowed the company to take advantage of Far Eastern's Beijing-based branch in tapping into Chinese markets.

After the liquidation, the number of SinoPac's overseas branches will be cut from 24 to 6 including a full-service branch in Los Angeles.

However, SinoPac will turn aggressive on its expansion into China. It plans to use capital from the sales to buy shares in Shanghai-based First Sino Bank (華一銀行) if restrictions on cross-strait investments are eased after the presidential election on March 22.

The reports also said SinoPac would use the liquidation's gains of around US$200 million to offset its previous losses in subprime-related investments.

NPL ratio drops slightly

The local banking sector's asset quality slightly improved with its non-performing loan (NPL) ratio dropping 0.01 percentage point month-on-month to 1.83 percent last month, Financial Supervisory Commission statistics showed.

The nation's 39 domestic banks had a total of NT$328.7 billion (US$9.98 billion) in bad loans by the end of January -- an increase of NT$600 million from December last year, among NT$17.98 trillion in total loans, which saw a 0.6 percent month-on-month growth last month, the commission's data showed.

Twenty-eight of the 39 banks maintained an NPL ratio of less than 2.5 percent and the ratio for another seven banks ranged between 2.5 percent and 5 percent. Chinfon Bank (慶豐銀行) remains the worst-performing bank with a non-performing loan ratio of 24.97 percent last month.

Local workers consider China

Most Taiwanese workers see China as a possible place of employment, according to the results of a survey released yesterday.

The poll results showed that those with backgrounds in the electronics, financial, insurance and medical fields were best positioned to find work there.

People with experience in the travel and recreation, international trade, wholesale, retail and information technology sectors were also considered to be in advantageous positions, according to the results.

The survey was conducted between Jan. 21 and Jan. 29 by the online employment broker 104 Job Bank.

The broker polled 1,150 Taiwan businesses and 3,078 workers.

While attracted to China's potential job market, many respondents were worried about the lack of suitable job opportunities for them and about the difficulty of finding information on China's job market, the results showed.
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