TAIEX plunges 1.35%
The TAIEX plunged 1.35 percent yesterday, with the benchmark index closing below the psychologically important 8,000-point mark and posting the biggest loss among Asian markets.
The TAIEX lost 108.99 points to close at 7,967.62. Turnover totaled NT$88.08 billion (US$2.97 billion) during the session.
A total of 1,192 stocks closed up and 2,810 finished down, while 320 remained unchanged.
Most of the eight major stock categories closed down, with the cement sector suffering the heaviest losses, finishing down 3 percent, while the construction sector scored the highest gains by finishing up 0.7 percent.
Nan Ya shares drop 3.3%
Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠), Taiwan’s biggest maker of ethylene glycol and polyester, saw its share price drop 3.3 percent to NT$65 yesterday, the steepest decline since Dec. 15, after announcing a lower-than-expected full-year profit and a plan to cut dividends.
The company’s net income sank 44 percent from a year earlier to NT$23.1 billion last year, it said in a statement on Friday. The average of 16 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg News was for a profit of NT$28.4 billion.
The company said on Friday it planned to pay a cash dividend of NT$2.1 a share for last year’s earnings, compared with NT$4.7 a year earlier.
Nan Ya Plastics’ board also approved a proposal to sell as much as NT$12 billion of unsecured bonds to repay debt and improve its financial structure, according to a separate statement. The company said it planned to invest an additional US$170 million in a Vietnamese steel venture, in which it owns a 21 percent stake.
CPC to stop Iranian imports
State-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) plans to stop importing oil from Iran in July because of US-led sanctions, president Lin Maw-wen (林茂文) said.
“We won’t be able to buy oil from Iran from July because we won’t be able to remit money,” Lin said by telephone. “In the first half of the year, we’ll keep taking delivery from Iran as contracted, and then we’ll stop from July.”
The company had renewed a 22,000 barrels a day crude contract with National Iranian Oil Co that runs from January to December. The nation imported about 30,000 barrels a day of Iranian crude last year, about 4 percent of its total oil needs, according to data from the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
CPC will make up for the lost Iranian barrels with increased imports from other contracted suppliers, such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or the United Arab Emirates, Lin said.
Steel dumping probe starts
The Ministry of Finance said yesterday that it had started an anti-dumping probe into imported steel products from several countries that were allegedly sold below market value.
China Steel Corp (中鋼) made the allegations in November last year. The company said cheap steel from China, Japan, South Korea and India has had a huge impact on the local market.
The ministry said it had asked the Ministry of Economic Affairs to help investigate if cheap steel imports have hurt the domestic industry.
The preliminary evaluation is expected to be finished by the end of July or early August, the ministry said, adding that in the meantime, it would decide whether to levy a temporary anti-dumping duty on these products.
NT dollar down slightly
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US currency yesterday, down NT$0.037 to close at NT$29.622. Turnover totaled US$783 million.
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