■OIL
CPC to cut prices
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) announced yesterday it would cut this month’s prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and fuel oil to reflect the declining costs of energy. Beginning today, CPC will lower the prices of household and industrial LPG by NT$5.5 per kilogram and drop those for vehicles by NT$3 per liter, the company said. Under the new adjustments, the price of LPG will be NT$22.21 per kilogram for households, NT$25.30 per kilogram for industrial users, and NT$15.5 to NT$17.50 per liter for vehicles, the company’s tallies showed. As for the price of a 20kg household gas cylinder, users will see prices drop by NT$110. CPC will also cut prices of low sulfur fuel oil by NT$4,516 per kiloliter to NT$15,397, the statement said.
■ENVIRONMENT
Ministry may reject tax
The Hualien County Government’s plan to levy carbon tax on companies that generate carbon dioxide emissions may be rejected by the Ministry of Finance, the Chinese-language Commercial Times reported yesterday, citing Minister of Finance Lee Sush-der (李述德). The county government’s plan to levy the energy tax on fuel users by NT$50 per tonne of carbon dioxide emissions generated was given a green light by the ministry during a preliminary review on Oct. 7. But in view of objection from the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the finance ministry has decided to soon conduct a second review on the tax plan to clarify whether the carbon tax is a national tax or a local tax, the paper said.
■INVESTMENT
Exchange to ease policies
Taiwan Futures Exchange Corp chairman Andy Yeh (葉景成) said the exchange will allow investors to use all fair value securities, including stocks, as margin collateral for futures positions beginning on Nov. 10, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday. In hedging accounts, the proportion of stocks used as part of the margin collateral will be increased to 80 percent early next year from 50 percent at present, Yeh said.
■BANKING
Susan Chang to head NGO
State-run Bank of Taiwan’s (臺灣銀行) chairwoman Susan Chang (張秀蓮) has been appointed the new head of the Asian Bankers Association, the bank said in a statement yesterday. Founded in 1981 in Taipei, the association is the biggest non-governmental organization in Asia, comprising 90 membership banks across the region, the statement said.
■BANKING
Freedom Bank shut down
Regulators have shut down Freedom Bank, a small bank located in Bradenton, Florida. It was the 17th failure this year of a federally insured bank. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp was appointed receiver of the bank, which had US$287 million in assets and US$254 million in deposits as of Oct. 17.
■NEW ZEALAND
Wellington offers guarantees
New Zealand’s government offered wholesale funding guarantees yesterday to leading banks and financial institutions, seeking to boost their ability to attract investment in tight international credit markets. The move, announced jointly by the treasury and central bank, matched guarantees offered by other leading industrialized nations attempting to woo skittish international investors. The government had previously moved to guarantee retail deposits.
Meta Platforms Inc offered US$100 million bonuses to OpenAI employees in an unsuccessful bid to poach the ChatGPT maker’s talent and strengthen its own generative artificial intelligence (AI) teams, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said. Facebook’s parent company — a competitor of OpenAI — also offered “giant” annual salaries exceeding US$100 million to OpenAI staffers, Altman said in an interview on the Uncapped with Jack Altman podcast released on Tuesday. “It is crazy,” Sam Altman told his brother Jack in the interview. “I’m really happy that at least so far none of our best people have decided to take them
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Taiwan’s property market is entering a freeze, with mortgage activity across the nation’s six largest cities plummeting in the first quarter, H&B Realty Co (住商不動產) said yesterday, citing mounting pressure on housing demand amid tighter lending rules and regulatory curbs. Mortgage applications in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung totaled 28,078 from January to March, a sharp 36.3 percent decline from 44,082 in the same period last year, the nation’s largest real-estate brokerage by franchise said, citing data from the Joint Credit Information Center (JCIC, 聯徵中心). “The simultaneous decline across all six cities reflects just how drastically the market
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