Profit taking limits TAIEX
Profit taking emerged on the Taiwan Stock Exchange to reverse an earlier upside, sending the benchmark TAIEX lower at the end of the session yesterday, dealers said.
Selling focused on certain old-economy stocks and added further downward pressure on the broader market amid lingering concerns over the global economy, dealers said.
The weighted index closed down 14.68 points, or 0.20 percent, at 7,437.04, after moving between 7,398.80 and 7,478.51, Turnover totaled NT$66.31 billion (US$2.26 billion) during the session.
Promotions boost car sales
Car sales for the first 10 days of this month grew sharply from a month earlier due to intensive promotion campaigns by car vendors to boost buying interest, according to the latest market data.
During the 10-day period, car sales totaled 5,012 units, up 163 percent from a month earlier and also up 58.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the latest figures from the data communication branch of Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信).
During the period of Jan. 1 to Oct. 10, a total of 279,557 cars were sold in Taiwan, down 2.5 percent from a year earlier, the statistics showed.
Matchmaking pays off
Three industry-related organizations from Taiwan — the Taiwan Garment Industry Association, the Taiwan Association of Logistics Management and the Industrial Technology Research Institute — signed letters of intent with their Japanese partners yesterday to pave the way for cooperation on technology, marketing and capital.
The signings took place during an investment matchmaking conference for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from Taiwan and Japan.
According to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, since the Taiwan-Japan SME cooperation and exchange promoting platform was launched last year, more than 20 cooperation projects worth more than NT$400 million have been achieved.
New homes out of reach
A double-income family has to save all of its disposable income for about 29 years to buy a new home in Taipei, a report showed on Thursday.
To buy a new 35 ping (115.7m2) home with three bedrooms in Taipei, salaried couples aged between 30 and 34 years old have to go 28.8 years without spending a dime of their disposable incomes, according to the report by My Housing magazine.
The number is 2.1 times that in New Taipei City (新北市), where couples in the age bracket have to live 13.5 years without spending their disposable salaries to purchase a newly finished home of the same size, the report showed.
Chinese tourist record set
A record 33,748 Chinese group tourists spent their Golden Week holiday from Sept. 30 to Sunday in Taiwan, the Tourism Bureau said on Thursday.
The figure, which represents a rise of over 75 percent from the 19,223 Chinese tourists who visited Taiwan during the same holiday period last year, is a result of more convenient air services and travel document processing amid the warming cross-strait ties, according to a bureau official.
The bureau forecast over 2 million Chinese tourist arrivals for this year, compared with 1.78 million last year.
NT dollar gains ground
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the US dollar yesterday, adding NT$0.072 to close at NT$29.360. Turnover totaled US$741 million during the trading session.
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