MOEA, Beijing to talk on deal
The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday confirmed that it would hold a technical negotiation over a goods trade pact with Beijing next month.
Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Bill Cho (卓士昭) told reporters that the informal technical negotiation would be held in China, adding that he could not be certain if there would be time for the 10th formal talk over the cross-strait trade-in-goods agreement before the end of this year.
Given that the last formal trade pact talks were held in Taiwan, the ministry expects that the next talks would take place in China, Cho said.
India partnerships on agenda
The nation is exploring opportunities for industrial partnerships with India under Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Make in India” initiative to boost industry, Industrial Development Bureau Deputy Director-General Leu Jang-hwa (呂正華) said on Wednesday in New Delhi.
Combining Taiwanese technologies with Indian brands and retail networks is one possible model that could create a win-win situation, Leu said.
Such cooperation would focus mainly on the electronics, shipbuilding and textile sectors, as proposed previously by the Indian government, he said.
Central bank meeting coming up
The central bank is scheduled to hold a quarterly policy meeting on Dec. 18 and is to announce its latest monetary policy decisions — including the bank’s policy interest rates and its M2 money supply growth target — at a press briefing afterward.
The bank would probably keep its benchmark interest rates unchanged for a 14th successive quarter to help boost the nation’s economy, according to economists in a Bloomberg News survey.
The bank set the target growth zone for M2 at between 2.5 percent and 6.5 percent this year.
FineTek stock rises sharply
FineTek Co Ltd (桓達) yesterday saw its shares rise nearly 21 percent to close at NT$117 on its trading debut on the GRETAI Securities Market (GTSM) from its initial public offering (IPO) price of NT$97.
The benchmark over-the-counter index ended the day 0.3 percent lower.
The company’s business is focused on automated sensors, particularly those specialized for use in the manufacturing of solid and liquid applications.
Automated sensors accounted for nearly 88 percent of FineTek’s total sales last year, followed by 8 percent from electric and pneumatic products and 4 percent from other items.
FineTek expects its automated sensor business to maintain growth of at least 10 to 15 percent year-on-year next year, as the automated sensor business is set to grow quickly due to successful penetration of the US and emerging markets.
OTC firms strong in Q3: GTSM
More than 60 percent of companies listed on the local over-the-counter (OTC) market were profitable in the third quarter, the GRETAI Securities Market said yesterday.
As of the end of September, a total of 673 companies were listed on the OTC market, according to GTSM.
During the July-to-September period, 13 companies listed on the OTC market posted more than NT$10 in earnings per share (EPS), and an additional 34 firms registered EPS ranging between NT$5 and NT$10.
A total of 137 firms listed on the OTC market recorded EPS ranging from NT$2 to NT$5, GTSM said.
Firms spending more on R&D
Local companies have invested more money on research and development (R&D) in recent years, with listed firms having invested NT$412.9 billion (US$13.4 million) in R&D during the first three quarters this year, up 8.9 percent year-on-year, the MOEA said yesterday.
The increase in R&D spending was driven mainly by the manufacturing industry, particularly the electronics sector, which earmarked NT$194.1 billion in R&D in the first three-quarters of the year, up 12.2 percent year-on-year, the ministry said.
Loans to SMEs exceed target
Local banks lent a total of NT$314.9 billion to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the first 10 months of this year, 31.19 percent more than the government’s full-year target of NT$240 billion, the Financial Supervisory Commission said yesterday.
The commission said that the loans extended to local SMEs from January to last month accounted for 54.8 percent of all loans made by domestic banks, up 0.3 percentage points from the level of the first nine months, while the SME non-performing loans ratio stood at 0.55 percent as of the end of last month, down 0.01 of a percentage point from the end of September.
Home loan growth slows
Home loans totaled NT$5.82 trillion at the end of last month, rising 4.52 percent from a year earlier — the slowest pace of increase in eight months, the central bank said on Wednesday.
The cautious sentiment on the part of buyers accounted for the slowdown, the central bank said, adding that self-occupancy needs underpinned transactions.
Construction financing also slowed to NT$1.61 trillion, representing a gain of 7.62 percent from the year-ago level and compared with an annual rise of 7.91 percent in September, the central bank said.
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