TAIEX rallies on US optimism
The TAIEX staged a rally yesterday, with many investors expecting the US Federal Reserve to come up with further liquidity easing measures to boost the economy, dealers said.
The gains also reflected optimism that the constitutional court in Germany was set to rule on whether the European Stability Mechanism bailout fund is constitutional later in the day.
The weighted index closed up 85.32 points, or 1.14 percent, at 7,570.45, after moving between 7,515.04 and 7,571.42, on turnover of NT$103.27 billion (US$3.49 billion), the highest level since Aug. 9.
‘Green goods’ get tax break
Items categorized as environmental goods and services (EGS), due to enjoy tariff cuts as the result of an agreement among APEC members, account for 10 percent of Taiwan’s total exports, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Tuesday.
Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) said this year’s APEC economic ministers’ meeting had produced an agreement to reduce the applied tariff rates on 54 EGS items to less than 5 percent by the end of 2015.
The 54 items include products and services related to reducing water or air pollution, waste management and renewable energy.
TAITRA aims exports at Iraq
Taiwan has set its sights on Iraq in its bid to promote exports to that country, according to the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會).
The Iraqi government has been very active in opening its market to foreign countries after the US completed its troop withdrawal in December last year, the TAITRA said in a statement on Tuesday.
TAITRA said there is massive demand for power supply equipment, infrastructure and machinery, as well as notebook computers and smartphones in Iraq. In addition, TAITRA foresees great potential in the Iraqi car market because the country lacks public transportation.
FSC to relax investment rules
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) on Tuesday announced plans to allow domestic securities investment trust companies greater flexibility so that they may better utilize their funds for domestic investment, according to a commission statement.
Under the current regulations, domestic securities investment trust companies can only invest up to 30 percent of their net worth on trust funds. The commission said it would soon raise the ceiling to 40 percent.
Separately, the commission on Tuesday approved SinoPac Securities Co’s (永豐金證券) plan to acquire Pacific Securities Co (太平洋證券), which will add 10 offices to the total number of outlets of SinoPac Securities to 59.
Breeze Center to expand
In view of a steady growth in its dining and restaurant operations, the Breeze Center (微風廣場) has announced plans to open the first Taiwan location for the Japanese discount store “Don Quixote” and expand its dining operations at the Taipei Railway Station, the Chinese-language Commercial Times reported yesterday.
The department store operator posted consolidated revenue of NT$7.5 billion in the first eight months of this year, up 8 percent from the same period of last year, the paper said, citing company data. Breeze Center has aimed to increase its consolidated sales by 9 percent to NT$11 billion for this year, the paper added.
NT dollar up vs greenback
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the US dollar yesterday, adding NT$0.046 to close at NT$29.669.
Turnover totaled US$816 million during the trading session.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by