■ Shares fall on profit-taking
Shares fell yesterday on profit-taking and amid concerns about the possible spread of bird flu in Asia.
The TAIEX dropped 0.4 percent at 6,020.94. It fell as low as 5,994.91 on concerns about the possible spread of bird flu after China confirmed its first human infections, dealers said. The stocks had risen 4.9 percent from Oct. 30 to Wednesday on inflows of foreign equity funds, but the index has been staying inside a range of 6,000 to 6,080 in the past week.
"The main board still lacks solid support from local investors, so every time foreign investors' net buying slows, profit-taking pressure emerges," said Daniel Tseng (曾建詮), a manager at Fubon Securities Investment Services Co (富邦投顧).
■ Tighter controls for card issuers
The nation's lawmakers yesterday demanded that the financial regulator tighten its supervision of credit and cash-advance card issuers in a bid to counter a growing bad loan threat.
Credit and cash-advance card issuers in Taiwan will be prevented from issuing new cards until after their non-performing loan ratios drop below 2.5 percent, according to a motion passed by Legislative Yuan's Finance Committee yesterday.
"The motion helps increase transparency," Gary Tseng (曾國烈), director general of the Banking Bureau said, adding that the regulator would abide by the lawmakers' decision.
The bureau will issue an administrative decree on this matter, Tseng said without giving a timeframe for the ruling to take effect.
According to current regulations, credit and cash-advance card issuers are not banned from issuing new cards unless their bad loan ratio exceeds 8 percent.
As of September, 13 credit card issuers had NPLs over 2.5 percent.
■ TAITRA told to expand into China
Lawmakers yesterday asked the semi-official Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會) to establish additional footholds in China while reviewing TAITRA's budget of NT$2.89 billion (US$86.26 million) for a trade promotion fund for next year submitted by the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
The lawmakers decided to make a small cut of NT$19 million from the proposed budget, but they also asked TAITRA to set up offices in the Chinese cities of Nanning, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Harbin and Wuhan.
TAITRA Secretary-General Chao Yung-chuan (趙永全) said the council will immediately send officials to the six cities in order to study the feasibility of setting up offices there.
To date, TAITRA has established footholds in Beijing and Shanghai, stationing one official at each place.
■ Infineon to spin off memory unit
Infineon Technologies AG said yesterday it plans to spin off its memory chip unit by next summer as part of a "strategic realignment" of the company.
Infineon said it plans to create two "focused and independent companies," for logic and memory products.
The latter will be carved out as an independent entity by July 1 next year and Infineon said its "preferred option" was then to carry out an initial public offering of the new company.
"The realignment reflects fundamental shifts in Infineon's target markets, characterized by changing market conditions and business processes," the Munich-based company said.
■ NT dollar remains weak
The New Taiwan dollar remained weak against its US counterpart, losing NT$0.007 to close at NT$33.629 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
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