TAIEX gains 0.43 percent
Taiwanese shares closed up 0.43 percent yesterday, tracking modest gains on Wall Street while financials continued to fall on profit-taking on news of financial pacts with China, dealers said.
The TAIEX rose 33.48 points to 7,766.69 on turnover of NT$131.91 billion (US$4.11 billion). Gainers led losers by 1,595 to 1,034, with 259 stocks unchanged.
Financials, the worst performing sector, fell 0.6 percent on continued profit-taking after Taipei and Beijing signed three long-anticipated agreements on financial supervision over the banking, insurance and securities businesses, dealers said.
Daiwa Securities (大和證券) fund manager David Li (李衍磬) expected the market to stage a mild rally to test 7,800 points today on possible government fund support.
Taiwan Life to sell office
Taiwan Life Asset Management Co (台壽保投信) is scheduled to put up its office building in Neihu (內湖) for auction on Nov. 30 with the floor price set at NT$2.32 billion, adviser to the deal DTZ (戴德梁行) said yesterday.
The 11-story property, which sits on a 997 ping (3,296m²) plot of land, has total floor space of 8,411 ping, the realtor said in a statement.
DTZ estimated that the commercial property would yield a more than 3.38 percent return on its asking price even with its current 16 percent vacancy rate.
If fully rented with a total monthly fixed income of NT$7 million, the deal’s annual return would further rise to 3.64 percent, the realtor said.
Prospective bidders will be required to put down a deposit of NT$250 million before the auction date, it said.
Bank to open new branch
China Construction Bank Co (中國建設銀行), the world’s second-largest lender by market value, is interested in opening a branch in Taiwan and buying assets in the country, chairman Guo Shuqing (郭樹清) said yesterday after a conference in Beijing.
However, the bank doesn’t have any “immediate plans” for its purchases or a branch in Taiwan, Guo said without elaborating.
Nan Ya delays plant restart
Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠), the world’s largest processor of plastics for pipes and imitation leather, delayed the restart of a chemical plant in Mailiao Township (麥寮), Yunlin County, because of a gas leak, president Wu Chia-chau (吳嘉昭) said by telephone yesterday.
Twelve workers were sent to hospitals for checkups, and initial results showed that they were fine, Wu said.
The toluene di-isocyanate plant had been halted for inspection before the accident, he said, without giving details.
The company has repaired the leak and is conducting further inspection before restarting the plant, which has an annual capacity of 30,000 tonnes.
“The company’s sales won’t be affected as it’s a small plant,” Wu said.
Land Bank eyes China
State-owned Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行) is planning to set up more offices in China after the signing of a memorandum of understanding on financial regulatory cooperation between Taiwan and China, a bank official said yesterday.
Wang Yao-shing (王耀興), chairperson of the Land Bank of Taiwan, said at a legislative meeting that the bank currently has a representative office in Shanghai.
“In the future, the bank is planning to set up footholds in Tianjin, Haixi economic zone and in Qingdao,” Wang said.
He said the bank hoped to upgrade its office in Shanghai into a branch to expand its services.
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
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
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