State fund shores up TAIEX
The TAIEX yesterday moved higher to stand above 7,100 points on the back of rotational buying, as the government’s National Stabilization Fund was believed to have poured additional funds into the market in a bid to shore up investor confidence, dealers said.
The weighted index closed up 47.89 points, or 0.68 percent, at the day’s high of 7,130.86, off a low of 7,073.32, on turnover of NT$75.98 billion (US$2.51 billion).
The textile sector scored the biggest gains among the eight major stock categories, finishing up 1.7 percent, as several manufacturers reported receiving rush orders.
Among them, polyester product manufacturers Li Peng Enterprises Co (力鵬) and Lealea Enterprises Co (力麗) closed up 7 percent, the maximum daily increase, to close at NT$9.98 and NT$11.75 respectively.
Unitech refocuses on Taiwan
Unitech Printed Circuit Board Corp (燿華電子) will increase its investment in Taiwan to reduce labor costs in China, company chairman Lawrence Chang (張平沼) said yesterday.
The company, a China-based Taiwanese manufacturer of printed circuit boards, has decided to shift part of its production process back to Taiwan after a year of evaluation, Chang said.
The investment, estimated at NT$4 billion, will be spent on facilities at the Letzer Industrial Park in Yilan County, Chang said.
Unitech has decided not to continue with the expansion of its operations in China because automated production lines require more engineers rather than manual labor, he said.
Moreover, the turnover rate for Chinese engineers was roughly 5 percent per month, whereas it was 5 percent per year for Taiwanese engineers, forcing the company to continuously send engineers from Taiwan to fill the gap and raising its operating costs in China, Chang said.
Catcher’s Q4 sales up 27%
Metal casing maker Catcher Technology Co (可成科技), a supplier of Apple Inc’s iPhones, posted consolidated sales of NT$9.15 billion in the fourth quarter of last year, up 26.8 percent year-on-year, but down 15.1 percent from the previous quarter.
Its revenue last month was NT$3.24 billion, up 24.6 percent from November and 32.8 percent from the same month in 2010, a company statement showed.
Revenue for the whole of last year totaled NT$35.91 billion, marking an increase of 64.4 percent from a year ago.
FSC passes Cathay Bank plan
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday approved plans by Cathay United Commercial Bank (國泰世華銀行) to open an outlet in Shanghai, the financial regulator said in a statement on its Web site.
The decision will help the lender to further lift its standing in the Chinese city, where it already owns a branch, the statement said.
First opens second leasing firm
First Financial Holding Co (第一金控) yesterday inaugurated its second capital leasing company in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, to take advantage of higher borrowing costs there, the state-run conglomerate said in a statement.
The new firm will seek to provide financing for Taiwanese companies based in the Chinese city, the statement said.
First Financial opened a capital leasing company in Suzhou in April last year.
NT dollar advances
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday rose NT$0.024 to close at NT$30.266 against the US dollar on turnover of US$463 million.
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