Shares close 1.23% higher
Taiwanese share prices finished 1.23 percent higher yesterday as the market continued its rebound despite a sharp fall in the nation’s exports last month, dealers said.
The weighted index rose 54.33 points at 4,472.66 on turnover of NT$82.87 billion (US$2.48 billion).
Buying was stronger than selling throughout the session despite the government’s report that the nation’s exports last month saw the steepest decline since October 2001, falling 23.3 percent from a year earlier largely on weakening demand for electronic products amid a global economic meltdown.
“We’ve kept hearing negative news like this since September, but then again, the market has reflected the down trend,” Allen Lin of Concord Securities (康和證券) said.
Late sell-offs offset half of the near-2.5 percent rise seen in the middle of the trading session.
“Investors were reluctant to push prices higher as they expected a consolidation in the rest of the trading sessions this week,” Lin said.
Lenovo predicts consolidation
Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想), China’s biggest PC maker, expects PC companies to consolidate “soon” because of the global slump in stock prices, chief executive officer William Amelio said.
“With equity values down significantly, there will be consolidations in this industry,” Amelio said in Shanghai yesterday. There is “no news to share on” a possible plan by Lenovo to buy Brazil’s Positivo Informatica SA, he said.
Lenovo may face competition from Dell Inc in a possible bid for Positivo, Brazil’s largest computer maker, the Estado de S. Paolo newspaper said this week. Purchasing the Curitiba-based company would help Lenovo close the gap in market share with Acer Inc (宏碁), which last year overtook it as the third-biggest PC supplier.
Dell and Lenovo executives visited Positivo’s headquarters, the Estado said. President Helio Rotenberg said the company had been approached by potential buyers and there was “nothing concrete.”
PRC bank to open US branch
State-owned China Construction Bank Corp (中國建設銀行), China’s second-largest commercial lender, said yesterday it had received US government approval to open its first US branch in New York City.
Construction Bank said its New York branch would offer commercial lending, trade finance, foreign exchange and other business services. The branch will be its seventh outside mainland China, the bank said in a statement.
Chinese banks are flush with cash because of the country’s economic boom and have largely avoided the turmoil that has battered Western institutions.
Construction Bank said it had 7 trillion yuan (US$1.1 trillion) in assets as of June 30, the last time it reported financial results.
Mitsubishi recalls SUVs
Japan’s Mitsubishi Motors Corp said yesterday it would recall more than 200,000 sports utility vehicles (SUVs) worldwide because of a defective brake light system.
Japan’s No. 4 automaker said it would recall 52,047 Outlander and Grandis vehicles manufactured between May 2005 and April 2008 and sold in Japan.
Another 150,000 would be recalled overseas, it said.
“When the brake light system starts not to function, the gearshift may get stuck in the parking position,” Mitsubishi said in a report to the transport ministry.
NT dollar loses ground
The NT dollar lost ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining NT$0.029 to close at NT$33.546.
A total of US$675 million changed hands during the day’s trading.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
STILL UNCLEAR: Several aspects of the policy still need to be clarified, such as whether the exemptions would expand to related products, PwC Taiwan warned The TAIEX surged yesterday, led by gains in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), after US President Donald Trump announced a sweeping 100 percent tariff on imported semiconductors — while exempting companies operating or building plants in the US, which includes TSMC. The benchmark index jumped 556.41 points, or 2.37 percent, to close at 24,003.77, breaching the 24,000-point level and hitting its highest close this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data showed. TSMC rose NT$55, or 4.89 percent, to close at a record NT$1,180, as the company is already investing heavily in a multibillion-dollar plant in Arizona that led investors to assume
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