Gas, diesel prices rise
Domestic gasoline and diesel prices will rise by NT$1.1 and NT$1.3 per liter respectively today to reflect rising international crude oil prices, the state-owned oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), the nation’s only publicly traded oil refiner, announced yesterday.
After the adjustment, CPC’s price for a liter of 98-octane unleaded gasoline will be NT$32.3, 95-octane unleaded gasoline will be NT$30.8, 92-octane unleaded gasoline will be NT$30.1 and diesel will be NT$27.7.
The hike in oil prices today put an end to three consecutive weeks of price cuts.
FTTH rate reaches No. 4
Taiwan’s nationwide penetration rate of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) services has moved up a notch to fourth in the world, following South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan, according to a survey by the FTTH Council, an international non-profit organization.
According to the Taiwan-based Institute for Information Industry, user numbers for FTTH services in Taiwan increased from 200,000 households in 2006 to 550,000 last year. That number increased to 650,000 in the first quarter of this year.
Institute officials estimate that households connected to FTTH networks will number 1 million by the end of the year, while by 2011 the service will extend to 2.5 million households.
CAL offers Manila service
In a show of commitment to southern Taiwanese clients, China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空), announced yesterday that it would provide a daily service between Kaohsiung and Manila from Oct. 1.
Flight CI 637 will depart at 9:05am from Kaohsiung and arrive in Manila at 10:45am. The return flight, CI 638, will leave at 11:45am and arrive in Kaohsiung at 1:25pm.
An expected increase in business from cross-strait travel did not materialize for CAL. It is therefore focusing on profitable, short-haul routes.
Overseas tax in 2010
The Ministry of Finance said on Thursday that the Cabinet had approved a ministry proposal to impose a tax on overseas earnings in 2010.
In a statement posted on its Web site, the ministry said the new charge will come into effect in 2010, instead of next year as first proposed, because current tax breaks outlined in the Basic Income Tax Code (所得基本稅額條例) do not end until the end of next year.
With the Cabinet working on an overhaul of the nation’s taxation system, the ministry said the one-year delay would facilitate the success of the transition.
The Cabinet is mulling reforms such as lower corporate, inheritance and gift taxes to help attract investors.
NT dollar down again
The New Taiwan dollar declined for a third day after the nation’s central bank unexpectedly cut interest rates and US lawmakers held up a plan to buy US$700 billion in troubled assets from leading financial companies.
The NT dollar fell NT$0.047, or 0.2 percent, to close at NT$32.045 against the US dollar, according to Taipei Forex Inc. It climbed 0.4 percent this week, ending nine weeks of losses.
“In the near term, we could still see some weakness in the Taiwan dollar, mainly because risk aversion remains at very elevated levels,” said Maya Pinto, an economist at IDEAglobal in Singapore.
“But in the medium to longer term, once the US financial crisis blows over, among the regional currencies we’d expect the Taiwan dollar to outperform again,” he said.
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State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday signed a letter of intent with Alaska Gasline Development Corp (AGDC), expressing an interest to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) and invest in the latter’s Alaska LNG project, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. Under the agreement, CPC is to participate in the project’s upstream gas investment to secure stable energy resources for Taiwan, the ministry said. The Alaska LNG project is jointly promoted by AGDC and major developer Glenfarne Group LLC, as Alaska plans to export up to 20 million tonnes of LNG annually from 2031. It involves constructing an 1,290km
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