Fri, Oct 06, 2006 page11

• Business Briefs

  • AGENCIES
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  ■ Shares close higher

  Shares closed 1.78 percent higher yesterday with momentum building after Wall Street posted its second straight record high close, dealers said.

  The TAIEX closed up 122.26 points at 6,997.24, on turnover of NT$113.36 billion (US$3.42 billion).

  Local financial markets will close for a five-day holiday from tomorrow.

  Risers led decliners 799 to 325, with 129 stocks unchanged.

  For the week to today, the weighted index closed up 114.19 points or 1.66 percent, after a 2.55 percent increase a week earlier.

  Average daily turnover stood at NT$85.73 billion, compared with NT$75.13 billion a week ago.

  ■ Deflation stalking nation

  The nation's consumer prices fell for the second month in a row in September as fruit, vegetables and mobile phone fees became cheaper, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.

  Last month, Taiwan's consumer price index fell 1.22 percent from the same month last year, after falling a revised 0.56 percent in August, the DGBAS said.

  Last month's CPI decline was the largest in 43 months, following a fall of 1.52 percent, year-on-year, in February 2003.

  The government may lower its forecast for full-year inflation as soon as next month, Wu Chao-ming (吳昭明), head of the agency's prices section, said yesterday.

  ■ Chinatrust in the red

  Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中國信託) had a loss in the last quarter on a rise in bad-loan provisions.

  The net loss was NT$166 million (US$5 million), compared with a profit of NT$5.12 billion a year earlier. The third-quarter result was derived by subtracting first-half profit from nine-month figures released by the company in a statement yesterday.

  For the first nine months, the company posted a net loss of NT$2.42 billion, based on unaudited figures. That compares with a profit of NT$14.1 billion a year earlier.

  Bad loan provisions in the first nine months rose to NT$33.3 billion, an increase of NT$24.9 billion from a year earlier, the statement said.

  Before the provisions, the company made a pretax profit of NT$29.1 billion in the first nine months, up 12 percent from a year earlier, the statement said.

  ■ Reserves up US$500 million

  The nation's foreign exchange reserves rose to US$261.55 billion at the end of last month, from the US$261.02 billion at the end of August, the central bank said yesterday in a statement.

  The month-on-month increase mainly reflected returns from the bank's management of foreign exchange reserves, the statement said.

  ■ CAL increases India flights

  China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 華航), Taiwan's leading international carrier, said yesterday it will increase the number of passenger flights between Taipei and Delhi from three to five a week to meet greater demand.

  A CAL spokeswoman said both tourism and business passengers to India from Taiwan are on the rise and the extra flights will start from Oct. 30.

  "For businessmen in particular, many of them use Delhi as a transit point to India's high tech base Bangalore," the spokeswoman said.

  She said Mumbai and Kolkata are the other two favorite cities for Taiwanese visitors.

  ■ NT dollar stronger

  The New Taiwan dollar strength-ened against its US counterpart yesterday, rising NT$0.027 to close at NT$33.093 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.

  Turnover was US$727 million.
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