Stocks continue upswing
Share prices continued an upswing trend yesterday on the back of active rotational buying, dealers said.
Interest focused on financial shares and select conglomerate stocks throughout the session, but the gains were capped as the market was faced with stiff technical resistance after the index breached the 7,500-point mark a session earlier, they said.
The weighted index closed up 0.42 percent at 7,549.21, on turnover of NT$145.23 billion (US$4.90 billion).
Projector shipments slide
Local shipments of projectors slid at an annual rate of 11.4 percent in the fourth quarter of last year as government agencies reduced purchases ahead of the Jan. 14 elections, market researcher International Data Center (IDC) said in a report yesterday.
Shipments dropped to 26,925 units in the fourth quarter of last year, from 27,642 units in the same period of 2010, IDC’s statistics showed.
Government agencies’ purchases accounted for half of the domestic projector market, IDC said.
On a quarterly basis, shipments decreased 3 percent from 26,601 units in the third quarter of last year, the research firm said.
UMC, Faraday ink agreement
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 2 contract chipmaker, yesterday announced that it has reached an agreement with Faraday Technology Corp, a leading application-specific integrated circuit and silicon intellectual property provider, to include fundamental and specialized patents for advanced UMC process technologies.
Under the terms of the agreement, Faraday will optimize a complete intellectual property portfolio for UMC process technologies ranging from 0.11 micron to advanced 28 nanometer nodes to help mutual customers shorten their system-on-chip design time-to-market for a variety of applications.
CPC to raise gas prices
State-owned oil company CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 中油) said it will increase domestic liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and natural gas prices this month to reflect higher international costs.
LPG prices will be raised by NT$1.70 a kilogram and natural gas prices for household use will increase by NT$0.48 per cubic meter, the Taipei-based company said on its Web site yesterday.
Minister to get Facebook page
Ministry of Economic Affairs officials yesterday announced plans to open an official Facebook account under the title “economics minister” on Feb. 6 to respond to public inquiries.
The account, to be opened under the name of Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥), is the first account to be set up on the social networking platform by Cabinet members that uses an official title, ministry officials said.
Shih, who was kept on in his post in the current Cabinet reshuffle, decided to open a public Facebook page to create a communication channel that can inform the public about economic policies in real time and correct any shortcomings, Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Sheng-chung (林聖忠) said.
NT dollar weakens
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday reversed earlier gains on concern economic growth will falter after the nation reported the slowest expansion in two years.
The NT dollar weakened 0.3 percent to NT$29.695 against its US counterpart as of the close, according to Taipei Forex Inc. That was the biggest decline since Dec. 15.
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