TAIEX rallies by 1.3 percent
The TAIEX staged a rally for the second consecutive session yesterday as market sentiment improved on the back of the strong “Black Friday” weekend sales in the US, with large high-tech stocks leading the upside, dealers said.
Buying was also triggered by optimism about the debt situation in the eurozone, because the leaders in the bloc are working on a proposal to grant the EU greater authority to rein in the fiscal policies of its members in a bid to resolve their financial difficulties, they said.
The TAIEX closed up 89.87 points, or 1.3 percent, at 6,988.65, after moving between 6,934.87 and 6,998.06, on turnover of NT$76.34 billion (US$2.51 billion).
ECFA tool exports up 34.3%
The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said the 19 tools and machinery items under the “early harvest” list of the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) posted 34.3 percent growth in export value over the first 10 months of the year to US$3.4 billion.
The result was more robust than the average growth of 18 percent for the tools and machinery sector as a whole, the ministry said in a statement.
In addition to China, the sector’s growth in exports to the US was 116.5 percent for the first 10 months, while that to Germany was 148.1 percent and Turkey 78.2 percent, it said.
The sector was growing rapidly because Taiwanese players have been making forays into different markets and made efforts to upgrade quality and offer more added value to their products.
Foreign-based firms’ profits drop
The earnings of Taiwanese firms with operations in China and elsewhere abroad fell sizeably year-on-year for the first three quarters as the global economic climate cooled, Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) data showed yesterday.
The 1,021 Taiwanese firms based in China saw their earnings shrink nearly 10 percent to NT$114 billion (US$3.75 billion) for the first nine months from NT$126.5 billion in the same period last year, the FSC statistics indicated.
The 1,085 firms elsewhere owned by Taiwanese fared worse, with earnings down 27.49 percent to NT$184.4 billion as of September, FSC data found.
Makers of electronics, computers and peripheral equipment reported better financial results than firms in other sectors, the FSC said.
Hua Nan sells NT$5bn of bonds
Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行), the flagship subsidiary of state-run Hua Nan Financial Holding Co (華南金控), sold NT$5 billion of seven-year subordinated bonds at 1.63 percent to boost working capital and improve its financial structure, Hua Nan Financial said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
Growth to rebound in Q2: DGBS
Taiwan’s economic growth should hit bottom in the first quarter of next year, but then rebound after that, Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBS) Minister Shih Su-mei (石素梅) said on Monday.
Responding to a question about the economy’s future growth at a legislative hearing, Shih forecast growth for the four quarters of next year of 2.67 percent, 3.61 percent, 4.99 percent and 5.31 percent.
In the latest DGBAS update, it forecast GDP growth for next year at 4.19 percent, 0.19 percentage points lower than the previous forecast.
NT dollar rises slightly
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the US dollar yesterday, adding NT$0.04 to close at NT$30.412.
Turnover totaled US$728 million during the trading session.
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