China-bound investment rises
The government has approved a total of 1,092 applications for China-bound investment worth US$2.54 billion in the first seven months of the year, up 31 percent from a year earlier, the Investment Commission said yesterday in a statement.
The electronics and electrical sector accounted for 23.89 percent of the applications while 9.93 percent were for the base metal sector, the commission said. Chemicals accounted for 8.35 percent and the precision machinery sector 6.51 percent. Almost half of the investments, 44 percent, are intended for Jiangsu Province.
In the seven-month period, the commission approved 455 non-China bound investment applications worth US$1.95 billion, up 6.51 percent from the same period last year. The commission approved 601 inbound investment applications during the same period worth US$1.51 billion, down 17.67 percent year-on-year, it said.
Current account surplus grows
The nation's current-account surplus widened in the second quarter as investment income rose and fewer people traveled overseas during the SARS outbreak.
The surplus widened to US$6.58 billion from US$5.79 billion a year earlier, the central bank said in a statement.
The income surplus increased to US$2.4 billion from US$1.59 billion, the bank said. The deficit on the services account narrowed to US$859 million from US$1.11 billion.
The trade surplus narrowed to US$5.68 billion from US$5.95 billion. Taiwan's financial account turned to a deficit of US$2.09 billion from a surplus of US$10.9 billion as fund managers in the country invested more money in foreign stocks and bonds, the bank said.
Growth forecasted for chips
The worldwide semiconductor market will grow 11.2 percent this year compared to last year due to increasing demand, US-based research firm Gartner Inc predicted on Tuesday.
Last year the global semiconductor industry made US$156 billion in sales revenue. Gartner forecast Tuesday that the figure will reach US$173 billion this year.
"Noteworthy improvements in market conditions during the last few weeks confirm that the industry is continuing its recovery as expected and is about to enter a more accelerated growth phase," said Richard Gordon, vice president for Gartner's semiconductor research group, in a statement.
"While many industry watchers have been revising down their forecasts recently, we have been predicting growth of around 10 percent for 2003 since the fourth quarter of last year," he said.
Chinatrust sets swap offer
Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控) is offering shareholders 0.633 preference shares and 0.254 common shares for each Grand Commercial Bank (萬通銀行) share in its attempted takeover of the lender controlled by the nation's largest food company.
Grand Commercial will issue 407.5 million new shares to facilitate the offer, Michael Jong (鍾隆吉), vice chairman of the financial arm of the Koos Group (和信集團), said after a shareholder meeting yesterday.
NT dollar hits one-year high
The NT dollar had its highest close in almost a year yesterday on trader expectations of growing currency demand by overseas investors.
The NT dollar gained 0.2 percent to NT$34.298 against its US counterpart, its strongest close since Sept. 9 last year. Turnover was US$615 million.
International fund managers on Tuesday purchased a net NT$11.6 billion (US$338 million) of Taiwanese stocks, the most since May 29, according to Bloomberg data.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
VERTICAL INTEGRATION: The US fabless company’s acquisition of the data center manufacturer would not affect market competition, the Fair Trade Commission said The Fair Trade Commission has approved Advanced Micro Devices Inc’s (AMD) bid to fully acquire ZT International Group Inc for US$4.9 billion, saying it would not hamper market competition. As AMD is a fabless company that designs central processing units (CPUs) used in consumer electronics and servers, while ZT is a data center manufacturer, the vertical integration would not affect market competition, the commission said in a statement yesterday. ZT counts hyperscalers such as Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Google among its major clients and plays a minor role in deciding the specifications of data centers, given the strong bargaining power of
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
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