Print

Mail

wiki links

Business Briefs

NPL ratio increases

The non-performing loan (NPL) ratio, including loans under surveillance, inched up to 1.54 percent last month from September’s 1.53 percent, the Financial Supervisory Commission said yesterday.

At the end of last month, 37 domestic banks had bad loans totaling around NT$286.4 billion (US$8.6 billion), up from NT$281.8 billion in September, the commission’s latest statistics showed.

Among the 37 banks, 28 outperformed to have a NPL ratio of below 2.5 percent, while another eight banks’ NPL ratios leveled between 2.5 percent and 5 percent. Chinfon Commercial Bank (慶豐銀行) still had the worst NPL ratio (30.68 percent), the statement said.

The commission said the coverage ratio for domestic banks, which gauges the ability to absorb potential losses from NPLs, slightly declined to 66.12 percent last month from the third quarter’s 66.93 percent.

The quality of unsecured consumer loans granted via credit cards and cash cards, however, continued to improve and post a 1.71 percent and 4.319 percent respectively last month, the statement said.

Chinese travelers to increase

China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) expects the number of Chinese travelers flying to Taiwan to jump 20-fold by 2013.

The number of Chinese passengers making the trip will rise to 6 million by 2013 from 300,000 last year, CAL president Sun Huang-hsiang (孫洪祥) said at a conference in Guangzhou, China, yesterday. The figure may reach 1 million in 2010, he said.

“Our direct flights are quite profitable,” Sun said. “People are prepared to pay a bit more to cut travel times.”

Passenger numbers from Taiwan to China will rise to 6.3 million in 2013 from 4.6 million last year, Sun said.

Total cross-strait traffic will more than double to 12.3 million in 2013 from 4.9 million last year, he said.

Cross-strait cargo traffic to Taiwan may rise to 45,400 tonnes in 2010 and reach 136,000 tonnes in 2013, Sun said. That compares to 9,980 tonnes last year.

China Airlines will start cargo services to Shanghai and Guangzhou on Dec. 15, Sun said.

Central bank board to meet

The central bank will hold its quarterly board meeting at 3.30pm on Dec. 11, bank Director-General Chen Hsin-sheng (陳欣勝) said yesterday. Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) will hold a press conference after the policy meeting, Chen said.

Atypical work on the rise

The number of atypical workers in the country accounts for 6.24 percent of the labor force, with this group being paid nearly 53 percent less than regular workers on average, a report by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) on Wednesday showed.

DGBAS officials said that compared with Japan and South Korea, the ratio of atypical workers in this country is relatively low. The ratio, however, is likely to increase in the coming years as more companies switch to atypical employment patterns in a bid to reduce personnel costs during a recession, they said.

The reports showed that there were 10.41 million workers in the country as of May, approximately 650,000 of whom were engaged in atypical employment such as seasonal, temporary agency and part-time work.

NT dollar gains

The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.004 to close at NT$33.302. Turnover was US$788 million.


This story has been viewed 386 times.