The government last night held off on a decision on whether to continue the halved daily lower limit of 3.5 percent on the stock market to curb plummeting stock values.
“We will continue to closely monitor the economic situation at home and abroad over the next two days and announce a decision at 6:30pm on Sunday,” Financial Supervisory Commission Chairman Gordon Chen (陳樹) told a press conference at 9:30pm.
The temporary measure, introduced on Oct. 13, has been in place over the past five days, while the maximum daily increase has remained unchanged at 7 percent.
Chen made the remarks after three hours of meetings by a task force led by Vice Premier Paul Chiu (邱正雄) and attended by top financial officials.
Earlier yesterday, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) told three lawmakers separately during the legislature’s question-and-answer session that the Cabinet would decide whether or not to prolong the measure by the end of yesterday.
Asked why the Cabinet put off making a decision, Chen said that “We all agreed that we should wait for one or two more days.”
The stock market plummeted to a five-year low yesterday, marking the first time the index has fallen below 5,000 since the SARS crisis in July 2003.
The benchmark TAIEX index dropped 115.57 points, or 2.28 percent, to 4,960.4 at the close of trade on a turnover of NT$55.324 billion (US$1.697 billion).
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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