Central bank changes policy
The central bank will accept foreign currency redeposits for one year from lenders starting tomorrow to absorb excess liquidity.
The move is to ensure stability in the financial system, the Central Bank of the Republic of China said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. It previously took only local-currency redeposits from banks.
The central bank on Jan. 7 cut its benchmark interest rate to 1.5 percent, the sixth reduction in four months, after exports last month plunged by a record 41.9 percent. The central bank has cut rates by a total of 2.125 percentage points since September.
Sun Moon project allocated
A NT$1.92 billion (US$58 million) real-estate development contract has been awarded to Hong Kong’s Bonds Group (寶聲集團) to build a tourist resort at Sun Moon Lake, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said in a statement.
The two-stage project will include a 265-room tourist hotel, convention center and a wedding banquet hall followed by a 101-room luxury hotel and villa, according to a statement posted on the ministry’s Web site on Friday.
The resort will be developed on 2.8 hectares over 4 years, with a lease period of a further 46 years, before the site is handed back to the government, the statement said.
Firms demand compensation
A dozen Taiwanese companies are seeking NT$700 million from China for losses caused by tainted milk products, a newspaper said yesterday.
The companies, including the King Car Group (金車集團), a leading food and beverage group, are jointly seeking the compensation from China, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) said.
Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation has informed China’s Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait of the firms’ demand for damages, and is waiting for a reply, the paper said.
China to boost fund investment
China’s stock regulator said the government will look into ways to encourage long-term investment in the stock market by funds.
The government will try to expand the share of investment by social security funds, company pension funds and other long-term funds in the stock market, Shang Fulin (尚福林), chairman of China’s Securities Regulatory Commission, said in an article in Qiushi magazine that was reproduced on the central government’s Web site.
HP agrees to salary vote
Hewlett-Packard Co, the world’s biggest maker of personal computers, agreed to let shareholders hold nonbinding votes on executive-compensation policies.
The board’s plan, if approved by investors at next year’s annual meeting, would allow shareholders to vote on executive pay at the following meeting in 2011, Hewlett-Packard said in a statement on Friday.
AMD to cut 9% of global staff
Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) plans to cut 1,100 jobs, 9 percent of its global staff, as the slumping chip maker retrenches during a slowdown in sales of personal computers.
The Sunnyvale, California-based company says 900 workers will have their positions cut. The rest of the reductions are coming from attrition and the previously announced sale of a business unit.
NT dollar declines
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US currency on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining NT$0.141 to close at NT$33.501. Turnover was US$216 million.
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