BAILING OUT BOWA: DBS will compete with about 40 local banks and more than 30 overseas financial services companies in Asia's fourth-largest banking market
DBS Group Holdings Ltd (星展銀行集團), Southeast Asia's largest bank, rose in Singapore trading on plans to expand into Taiwan in its first major acquisition in seven years.

[ FULL STORY ]

The NT dollar rose for a fifth day on speculation exporters were converting their overseas sales into the local currency before the Lunar New Year holidays that start tomorrow.

[ FULL STORY ]

By Judy Lin
The nation's foreign reserves reached US$272.818 billion as at the end of last month, a new record and an increase of US$2.507 billion on the previous month's figure, central bank data showed yesterday.

[ FULL STORY ]

Shares in Foxconn International Holdings Ltd (富士康), the world's largest contract manufacturer of mobile phones, rose the most in more than a week in Hong Kong trading after BNP Paribas SA said the company would gain orders from Nokia Oyj.

[ FULL STORY ]

HIGH TECH OR HOUSES: The real estate industry offered the highest average monthly starting salary last year at NT$32,452 and also paid out the highest bonuses this year
By Jerry Lin
Information technology (IT) firms were among job seekers' most popular search keywords on the Web last year, while jobs requiring Japanese language skills were most in demand, followed by positions for assistants and drivers, an executive of Internet-based 1111 Job Bank (1111人力銀行) said yesterday.

[ FULL STORY ]

ENCOURAGING: Wall Street recorded its best five-day gain since March 2003, while state-run 'papers quoted Chinese officials downplaying the impact of snowstorms
Asian markets rallied yesterday as investors were heartened by Wall Street's advance last week and by reports downplaying the impact of disastrous winter storms on China's broader economy.

[ FULL STORY ]

Japan's largest telecom group, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp (NTT), said yesterday that its net profit fell by 21.8 percent in the nine months to December as its cellphone unit DoCoMo suffered a slump in earnings.

[ FULL STORY ]

DIVISIVE: The South Korean company has run into fierce opposition over plans to construct a steel plant in the coastal Indian state of Orissa
South Korea's POSCO hopes to begin work on a new US$12 billion steel plant in eastern India in April after a year's delay caused by a "politically biased society," a report said yesterday.

[ FULL STORY ]

Singaporean inflation rising [ FULL STORY ]