FSC inks MOU with Dubai
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said yesterday that it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on financial supervision and cooperation with the Dubai Financial Services Authority.
The pact was signed by commission Chairman Gordon Chen (陳樹) and Dubai Financial Services Authority Chief Executive David Knott, the commission said.
It expects the MOUs to help ensure investors’ interests and help facilitate Taiwanese financial institutions’ overseas business development, the statement said.
Asian credit solid: Moody’s
Asian governments’ guarantees of bank deposits are unlikely to hurt their credit ratings because the sovereigns have enough fiscal strength to absorb any losses, Moody’s Investors Service said yesterday.
Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia extended deposit safeguards last month to shore up confidence as global bank losses widened. Hong Kong’s three-month interbank rate has fallen to 2.55 percent, almost half the level when the central bank made its pledge on Oct. 14.
“All of these countries have current account surpluses and are net creditor nations with substantial foreign currency reserves,” Moody’s said in a report.
Chunghwa cuts Internet fees
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) said yesterday it planned to cut its charges for Internet access by an average of nearly 9 percent to help customers reduce their expenses.
The phone company cut the charge for high-speed Internet access via fiber optical by 15.38 percent from NT$650 a month to NT$550.
While the company planned to cut its monthly charge for its ADSL service enabling downloading speed of 2 megabyte per second by 3 percent from NT$440 to NT$429. The 2M users make up the biggest portion of the company’s 4.32 million Internet access subscribers.
The new price tariff will take effect later this month.
Foreign reserves shrink
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves shrank by another US$2.98 billion to US$278.15 billion at the end of last month on continued foreign capital outflows, the central bank said yesterday.
Despite the drop, Taiwan’s reserves are still the fourth largest in the world, next only to China, Japan and Russia.
Lin Sun-yuan (林孫源), deputy director-general of the central bank’s department of foreign exchange, said there were large foreign capital inflows at the end of last month, but they failed to offset outflows earlier in the month.
Lin said the monthly figure also marked an increase of US7.84 billion from a year ago.
Computer viruses up 20 fold
Trend Micro Inc (趨勢科技), the world’s leading anti-virus software provider, said yesterday that the growth of computer viruses has increased by 20 fold since 2005. The firm said a new virus surfaces every four seconds, making it next to impossible to ward off attacks.
“Rather than destroying your computer and causing havoc in your life, computer hackers now are only interested in profiteering from stolen personal information,” Bob Hung (洪偉金), general manager at Trend Micro business unit, told a media briefing.
The software developer said it utilized cloud computing to store its multi-layer protection remotely in “the clouds,” which saved 70 percent of users’ computer space.
NT dollar gains
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.039 to close at NT$32.830. A total of US$1.24 billion changed hands.
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
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
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