Bank to upgrade Vietnam office
Taipei-based Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank (上海商業銀行) said yesterday that it expects to open a branch in Vietnam by the end of this year.
The bank said it has obtained the green light from Vietnamese authorities to upgrade its representative office in Bien Hoa City, the capital of Dong Nai Province in southern Vietnam, into a branch.
The bank’s Bien Hoa office was established in March 2006. It will become the bank’s second overseas branch after its Hong Kong branch opened in June 2008.
“Dong Nai Province is Vietnam’s industrial zone, where many Taiwanese investors have set up production facilities. We look forward to providing services to them,” a bank spokeswoman said.
The bank said the Dong Nai branch will specialize in corporate banking services, providing Taiwanese firms with deposit, remittance, currency exchange, trade financing and fund management services.
EnTie auctions property
EnTie Commercial Bank (安泰銀行) sold NT$900 million (US$29 million) of Taipei commercial properties at an auction to the Taiwan unit of Hengdeli Holdings Ltd (亨得利控股), the Taipei-based lender said in a stock exchange filing yesterday.
The bank expects to book a gain of NT$501 million from the sale.
Central bank issues CDs
The central bank issued NT$425.6 billion of certificates of deposit (CDs) in four tranches yesterday, including NT$100 billion in 364-day certificates auctioned on Friday, the monetary authority said in a statement on its Web site.
That was more than the NT$391.7 billion that matured yesterday, the statement said. The central bank sold 30-day CDs at 0.69 percent, 91-day CDs at 0.73 percent and 182-day CDs at 0.83 percent, the central bank’s statement said.
Taiwan to host conference
Taiwan will host an international conference today to discuss research progress, commercial opportunities and communication applications related to the nation’s automotive industry, the event’s organizer announced on Sunday.
The conference is also aimed at creating new markets for local companies and providing them with opportunities to enter the automobile industry’s global supply chain.
It has invited international representatives from academia and industry, including Microsoft, to take part in the event, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (工研院) said.
The conference will be held at the Taipei World Trade Center’s Nangang Exhibition Hall.
According to a forecast from research firm iSuppli, the global market for automotive electronic components will increase to more than US$100 billion by 2014, as the ratio of electronic components to the total cost of producing a car has risen from 19 percent in 2001 to 40 percent this year.
Firm mulls India, Mexico plants
China Steel Corp (中鋼) is considering building plants in India and Mexico, the Kaohsiung-based company said yesterday in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
TAIEX down in thin trade
The benchmark TAIEX closed down 0.81 percent yesterday in thin trade as investors took profits, eroding early gains despite a strong end to last week on Wall Street, dealers said.
The weighted index fell 67.43 points to 8,176.76, after moving between 8,165.20 and 8,277.78, on turnover of NT$95.85 billion.
The construction sector suffered the heaviest selling, down 2.19 percent. Cement stocks lost 1.51 percent, plastics and chemicals fell 1.2 percent, while the financial sector shed 1.14 percent.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure