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.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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