Property deals fell last month
Transactions of residential and commercial property fell about 10 percent nationwide between Nov. 1 and Wednesday, amid cautious sentiment ahead of Saturday’s nine-in-one elections, statistics released by Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) showed.
A survey conducted by the realtor prior to the polls showed that almost 50 percent of buyers planned to enter the market after the elections. Because of this, Sinyi Realty said that housing transactions are expected to pick up this month, which would help boost the sluggish property market.
Many homebuyers are also concerned that the government will continue to introduce measures to curb rising home prices, Sinyi Realty said.
Food makers score big abroad
A delegation of 12 food manufacturers led by the Ministry of Economic Affairs secured almost US$5 million in orders during a visit to Indonesia and Vietnam last week.
The ministry said on Saturday that the food makers met with 105 potential buyers in Vietnam and 137 in Indonesia, during the trip.
According to the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (外貿協會), Vietnam and Indonesia are the sixth and eighth-largest buyers of Taiwanese food products respectively.
For the first 10 months of the year, local food exports to Vietnam rose 68.9 percent from a year earlier to US$176 million, while those to Indonesia fell 6.6 percent from a year earlier to about US$108 million, the council said.
Taishin, CHB standoff drags on
Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控) chairman Thomas Wu (吳東亮) on Friday paid a two-hour visit to the Ministry of Finance in a bid to resolve the firm’s stalemate with the government over Chang Hwa Bank’s (CHB, 彰化銀行) board elections this month.
The Taishin side spent most of the meeting urging the ministry to honor a 2005 pledge to help the conglomerate win majority control of the CHB boardroom, in return for a generous fund injection to bail out the formerly state-run lender, Vice Minister of Finance Wu Tang-chieh (吳當傑) said.
However, he said Taishin failed to propose solutions to fulfill the ministry’s wish to win two of the three independent directors’ seats so it can block attempts by Taishin to acquire CHB procedurally.
He also voiced concerns that CHB has failed to show due respect to its government-appointed president by keeping him in the dark over personnel decisions.
CAL launches NZ flights
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) is to begin operating three flights per week from Taipei to Christchurch — New Zealand’s second-largest city — via Sydney, Australia, for three months starting today.
The new service is to run on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays until Feb. 28 to meet seasonal demand, CAL said.
The carrier currently runs eight flights per week that extend to Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, from Sydney or Brisbane, also in Australia.
New Desires on sale this month
New variants of HTC Corp’s (宏達電) mid-tier Desire smartphone series will hit the market this month, the smartphone manufacturer said on Friday.
The new sets will be available at HTC, Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) and Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) stores nationwide, it added.
The HTC Desire 620 and HTC Desire 620G, both of which have a dual-SIM card slot and a 5-inch HD display, will be priced at NT$6,990 and NT$4,990 respectively, the company said in a statement.
The first model is 4G LTE capable, while the latter supports 3G data connectivity, HTC added.
Central banks embrace yuan
More than 30 central banks across the world had yuan in their foreign exchange reserves as of the end of October, while a total of 28 have signed bilateral currency swap agreements with the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), China’s state-run Economic Daily reported last week, citing Deputy PBOC Governor Hu Xiaolian (胡曉煉).
Due to the closer ties being forged with other central banks overseas, trading volume through currency swaps has topped 3 trillion yuan (US$489 billion), Hu said.
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
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
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