Shares close 2.55% higher
Taiwanese shares finished 2.55 percent higher yesterday following Wall Street’s overnight rally and a government plan to help the ailing construction industry, dealers said.
The weighted index rose 105.95 points at 4,266.49 on turnover of NT$56.96 billion (US$1.7 billion).
Advancers outnumbered losers 977 to 371, while 319 stocks were unchanged.
Construction outperformed the broader market, surging 4.83 percent on reports that in a meeting with domestic land developers, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) agreed to help the sector amid the global financial turmoil.
Memory chip prices drop
Benchmark computer memory chip prices fell another 6.9 percent last week to a new low as output reduction failed to ease a supply glut, bringing the overall decline in the current quarter to 34 percent, Taipei-based researcher DRAMeXchange Technology Inc (集邦科技) said in the report yesterday.
Prices are likely to continue to drop next month as PC demand is expected to weaken during the traditionally slack fourth quarter, DRAMeXchange said.
The benchmark price for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips fell to US$0.81 per unit last week.
Fast food chain hopes to grow
Top Philippine fast food chain Jollibee Foods Corp said yesterday it would acquire a 70 percent stake in the Lao Dong (老董) group of Taiwan as part of an expansion drive.
Its wholly owned unit Jollibee Worldwide Pte Ltd will pay NT$42 million next month to the owners and invest another NT$21 million in the joint venture, the listed parent company told the Philippine Stock Exchange.
Lao Dong’s present owners will also invest NT$9 million in the business.
“The joint venture was entered into to pursue the operation and further expansion of the Lao Dong business in Taiwan and the introduction of the business into the People’s Republic of China,” the Jollibee statement said.
Lao Dong, which has eight stores and a commissary in Taipei, has annual sales of NT$121.6 million, it said.
CMP calls off property auction
The Central Motion Picture Co (CMP, 中央電影公司) yesterday called off an auction scheduled for today to liquidate its New World Building (新世界大樓) near Ximen MRT station, auction organizer DTZ Debenham Tie Leung International Property Advisers (戴德梁行) said in an e-mailed statement
The property was to have a floor price of NT$2 billion.
The company will reschedule the auction once the market environment is more positive, the statement said.
The property adviser said that many potential buyers had complained about the floor price.
Cross-strait deal expected
Taiwan and China are likely to sign a financial services agreement in the first half of next year, said Susan Chang (張秀蓮), chairwoman of government-owned Taiwan Financial Holding Co (台灣金控), who is also the head of the Bankers Association of the ROC (銀行公會).
“The signing of a memorandum of understanding will open up many opportunities for Taiwanese financial institutions,” Chang said yesterday in Beijing, where she is attending a cross-strait financial forum.
NT dollar gains ground
The NT dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.069 to close at NT$33.352.
A total of US$622 million changed hands during trading.
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