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Share prices dip

Share prices closed down 0.14 percent yesterday, tracking losses on regional bourses and on Wall Street, dealers said.

The TAIEX fell 11.06 points to 7,657.34 on turnover of NT$95.69 billion (US$2.95 billion).

Losers led advancers 1,731 to 793 with 194 stocks unchanged.

Besides the Wall Street lead, most investors chose to stay on the sidelines ahead of earning reports of major technology firms, said KGI Securities Co (凱基證券) trader Randy Chang (張修華).

“Taiwan shares actually pared some early losses, showing that there’s still buying demand,” he said, adding the market was likely to rebound today.

United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), fell 1.21 percent to NT$16.30 while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) was 0.33 percent lower at NT$61.30.

Asustek shares soar

Shares of Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) surged yesterday after the netbook computer pioneer on Monday night posted NT$6.497 billion in unaudited net profit in the third quarter, up 1.8 percent from NT$6.38 billion a year earlier.

The Taipei-based company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange that its unconsolidated revenue in the third quarter was NT$67.057 billion.

That was up 47.9 percent from NT$45.345 billion in the previous quarter but down 4 percent from NT$69.816 billion a year earlier, previously released financial data showed.

ECFA might exclude agriculture

Taiwan and China might not include agricultural products on a list of items that will be subject to tariff concessions upon the signing of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA), officials and experts said yesterday.

As Taiwan is concerned about the impact of opening to Chinese labor and agricultural products, Beijing is likely to respect Taipei’s requests that agricultural products be excluded from the list for tariff concessions, the officials said while attending an economic seminar in Chengdu, Sichuan Province.

Pang Chien-kuo (龐建國), a former adviser to the Straits Exchange Foundation and a professor at Chinese Culture University, said the proposed ECFA would not need to specify that Chinese agricultural products were barred from Taiwan, but merely exclude them from the list of items for which tariff concessions will be allowed.

Shanghai seeks NT dollar trade

Shanghai applied to Chinese regulators to start a trial program for the exchange of yuan and NT dollars to settle cross-border trade, a senior city official said on Sunday.

The trial may start soon, Fang Xinghai (方星海), director-general of Shanghai’s financial services office, said at the 6th China International Finance Forum in Shanghai. A transcript of Fang’s speech was posted on the Web portal Sina.com, the forum’s media partner.

Taiwanese companies invested about US$5 billion in Shanghai by the end of April, Fang said. Trade between the city and Taiwan amounted to US$13.7 billion in the first eight months of this year, he said.

NT dollar slips

The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US dollar, snapping two days of gains, on speculation overseas investors will pare investment in Taiwanese stocks.

The NT dollar fell NT$0.086, or 0.3 percent, to NT$32.480 at the 4pm close, Taipei Forex Inc said.

The US dollar advanced against eight of Asia’s 10 most-traded currencies outside Japan.

Overseas investors sold NT$4.7 billion more Taiwanese shares yesterday than they bought, stock exchange data showed.
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