TAIEX closes at six-year low
Share prices closed down 4.53 percent yesterday to a six-year low, tracking Wall Street’s overnight plunge and weaker regional markets, dealers said.
The weighted index fell 194.16 points to 4,089.93, its lowest level since October 2002. Turnover was NT$44.97 billion (US$1.35 billion). A total of 261 stocks closed limit-down and 35 were limit-up.
Plastics/petrochemical fell 5.91 percent and financials lost 5.82 percent. Electronics were down 4.60 percent, construction down 3.37 percent and textiles down 3.22 percent.
“Taipei shares reflected the downward trend in the global markets as demand and export growth weakened,” said Allen Lin, an analyst at Concord Securities (康和證券).
Lin expected the market to extend further losses to test 3,800 points next week due to a lack of positive leads.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), the world’s largest contract chip maker, shed 3.16 percent to NT$36.80. United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) was limit-down 7 percent at 7.08.
Corning to halt expansion
Corning Inc, the world’s largest maker of glass for liquid-crystal displays, said it will halt plans to expand in Taiwan and will cut production on the island because of declining demand.
“We’ve put it on hold,” Jim Terry, a spokesman for the company, said in a phone interview from Corning, New York, yesterday.
Corning said in early February that it would spend US$453 million to increase its glass-making capacity in Taichung. Terry yesterday declined to comment on the scale of the production cuts.
The slowdown comes as Corning’s Taiwan customers including AU Optronics Corp (友達) and Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美光電) reduced output amid slowing demand for flat-screen televisions and computer monitors.
Terry denied local media reports that Corning is planning to decrease staff in Taiwan. About 200 contract workers in Japan, Taiwan, China and the US will be cut, while the company will reduce staff in Kentucky by 85 employees on Dec. 8, he said.
Investment in China subsiding
Taiwanese investment in China has subsided even after restrictions on business between the two sides were eased, the Central News Agency reported on its Web site, citing a Mainland Affairs Council official.
Government-approved Taiwanese investment in China fell 34.2 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, the agency cited council Vice Chairman Fu Dong-cheng (傅棟成) as saying.
Easing of restrictions on China-bound investment has not hurt Taiwan economy, yet the “China investment fever” has subsided, Fu was quoted as saying.
Taiwan and China signed an accord earlier this month allowing regular direct flights and shipping for the first time in almost 60 years
China Steel to offer bonds
China Steel Corp (中鋼), Taiwan’s largest steelmaker, plans to sell as much as NT$20 billion of bonds to increase working capital
The debt will pay annual interest of no more than 3.5 percent, the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
China Steel is selling bonds as interest rates fall after the central bank lowered its benchmark interest rate for the fourth time in two months early this month.
Lawmakers exclude Cape Verde
The Executive Yuan yesterday approved a proposal by the Ministry of Finance to exclude the Republic of Cape Verde from its list of under-developed countries that enjoy customs-free treatment.
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
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