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[BUSINESS BRIEFS]

Shares hit five-year low

Taiwanese shares closed down 3.03 percent at a five-year low yesterday, tracking losses on Wall Street overnight and weaker regional markets, dealers said.

The weighted index fell 134.62 points at 4,305.18, its lowest level since hitting 4,271.30 on May 22, 2003. Turnover was NT$48.95 billion (US$1.48 billion).

Decliners led risers 1,159 to 228, with 281 stocks unchanged. A total of 252 stocks closed limit-down and 40 ended limit-up.

Loan rollovers approved

The Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday said the Bankers Association of ROC (銀行公會) has given its approval to 130 applications from domestic businesses for a six-month loan rollover.

A total of 169 firms have applied for the loan extension since mid-September, when the association’s bank members agreed to extend a six-month rollover for loans, due before March, to corporate borrowers that maintain normal operations and pay interest on time, Lin Tung-liang (林棟樑), deputy director of the commission’s banking bureau, told a media briefing yesterday.

Lin said that the commission expected more applicants for the loan rescue, given that businesses had placed around 500 calls to the association in the past two months.

Rates adjustment pending

Taiwan’s central bank said it would adjust interest rates to “proper levels” and promote financial stability. The central bank would also maintain order in foreign-exchange markets, Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) said in prepared remarks that are be delivered to the legislature tomorrow.

Silicon maker optimistic

Sino-American Silicon Products Inc (中美晶), Taiwan’s largest provider of silicon used in solar cells, said it expected sales to climb 45 percent next year as demand for alternative energy grows.

Revenue next year would expand to NT$16 billion (US$481 million) from an estimated NT$11 billion last year, Sino-American Silicon Products said in a briefing yesterday in Hsinchu, where it is based. The company posted sales of NT$7.2 billion last year.

Cost-cutting at TSMC, AUO

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest custom-chip maker, and AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電) are to cut employee costs amid the global economic recession.

TSMC will hire fewer people than usual, and is encouraging employees to use accumulated leave to cut costs because workers are compensated for holidays they don’t take, Tzeng Jin-hao (曾晉皓), a spokesman for the Hsinchu-based chipmaker, said yesterday. He said he wasn’t aware of any executive pay cuts.

AUO, Taiwan’s largest maker of liquid-crystal displays, will cut salaries of as many as 15 executives by 15 percent, and directors will suffer a 10 percent pay cut, said Hsiao Ya-wen (蕭雅文), a spokeswoman for the Hsinchu-based company.

Materials expo starts Friday

The 2008 Material Technology Exposition will begin on Friday and run for three days at National Taipei University of Technology, with nearly 1,500 scientists and industry representatives invited, the event’s organizer announced yesterday.

Materials Research Society Taiwan said its 40th annual meeting would be held alongside the expo to discuss use of material technologies in steelmaking, energy and optoelectronics applications and in integrated circuits, monitors and light-emitting diodes.

NT dollar falls

The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining NT$0.064 to close at NT$33.234. Turnover was US$793 million.


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