TAIEX stages rebound
The TAIEX staged a rebound yesterday as many investors were optimistic that the government’s National Stabilization Fund would continue its intervention to soften the impact of the eurozone debt crisis, dealers said.
Market confidence seemed to have been restored to some extent with many investors returning to the trading floor to boost daily turnover to more than NT$90 billion (US$3 billion), they added.
The TAIEX closed up 85.83 points, or 1.21 percent, at 7,178.89, after moving between 7,128.86 and 7,181.74 on turnover of NT$95.35 billion, which was the highest in more than a month.
Quanta beats shipment forecast
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), the world’s largest notebook computer ODM service supplier, yesterday said its shipments rose 7.1 percent last year from a year earlier, beating the company’s forecast of a 5 percent increase.
Quanta shipped 55.8 million notebook computers last year, compared with 52.10 million units shipped in 2010.
Though shipments of notebook computers rose for the year as a whole, Quanta’s consolidated sales fell by about 1 percent last year to NT$1.08 trillion.
Last month alone, consolidated sales totaled NT$91.47 billion, down 5.6 percent from November and also down 4.8 percent from a year earlier.
Delta Electronics’ sales slide
Delta Electronics Inc (台達電), the world’s top maker of switching power supplies, yesterday posted consolidated sales for last month of NT$13.44 billion, representing a 7 percent decrease year-on-year and a 10 percent decline from a month ago.
According to a company statement, total revenues last year hit NT$172.06 billion, up 0.4 percent from NT$171.3 billion in 2010.
The maker foresees revenues growing this year because the emergence of cloud computing technologies could create demand for products such as power supplies for servers, Internet equipment and visual displays.
Ministry extends fairs
Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) yesterday said the ministry would extend promotional fairs aimed at securing purchase orders for local businesses.
The promotional fairs, which began early in November, were originally scheduled to end next month. Shih said the ministry would extend the real-time and online business fairs for various industries until June.
The nation registered 12.2 percent year-on-year growth in trade volume last year to US$589.9 billion, the Ministry of Finance said on Monday.
Rail project budgets approved
Budgets for a revised subway project and two railway projects, including a plan to fully electrify the rail line running down the east coast, were approved by the Council for Economic Planning and Development on Monday.
The budget for the electrification of the Hualien-Taitung line, covering 155.46km, was raised from NT$15 billion to NT$25.43 billion for the 2008-to-2015 period.
Also given the green light was a project to turn the single-track Pingtung-Chaojhou (潮州) line in the south into an electrified, elevated double-track line and to build a railway depot in Chaojhou.
The proposed budget for the project, which began in 2005 and is expected to be completed by June 2015, is NT$25.4 billion.
NT dollar gains more ground
The New Taiwan dollar continued gaining ground against its US counterpart yesterday, increasing NT$0.154 to close at NT$30.051.
Turnover totaled US$1.075 billion during the trading session.
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
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