TAIEX hits five-month high
Taiwanese shares rose 2.3 percent to a more than five-month high yesterday, tracking gains on Wall Street and regional markets, dealers said.
The weighted index rose 118 points to 5,242.18, its best finish since hitting 5,246.26 on Oct. 15.
Turnover was NT$139.06 billion (US$4.09 billion) and gainers led losers by 1,574 to 399 with 120 stocks unchanged. The steel sector soared 3.9 percent, financials rose 3.2 percent and electronics were up 2.1 percent.
Hua Nan Securities Investment Management (華南永昌投顧) analyst Henry Miao (苗台生) expects the market to consolidate in the 5,200-point to 5,300-point range today following yesterday’s rally on Wall Street gains.
Wang Jyh-chau to head Chi Mei
Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子), the nation’s second-biggest maker of liquid-crystal displays (LCD), said yesterday it planned to name vice president and CEO Wang Jyh-chau (王志超) as president, replacing Ho Jau-yang (何昭陽), the company said in a stock exchange filing.
Wang’s appointment will be effective on April 1 after approval by the board of directors at a meeting today, the filing said.
The Tainan-based company said it also planned to nominate Ho and executive vice president Wu Biing-seng (吳炳昇) to be vice chairman of the board to help manage the Chi Mei Group’s (奇美集團) LCD component subsidiaries and boost the operation efficiency, the filing said.
CPC reports 6.3% decline
CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) reported a 6.3 percent decline in domestic oil-product sales last month from the previous month as demand for fuels dropped.
The state-run company sold 1.5 million kiloliters of gasoline, diesel, fuel oil and jet kerosene domestically last month, down from 1.6 million kiloliters in January, Chiang Chung-chen (江中鎮), a CPC vice president, said at a press conference yesterday.
“Our sales dropped because the whole market wasn’t going well,” Chiang said.
Debt rules may be revised
The Ministry of Finance yesterday proposed revising public debt rules that would allow local governments to raise more debt.
The director-general of the ministry’s national treasury agency, Hwang Ding-fang (黃定方), said the ministry called a meeting on the issue at which all city and county chiefs agreed to the proposal.
Under the planned revision, special municipalities could raise debt of up to 2.5 times their annual budgets, Huang said. Taipei County, a semi-special municipality, would emerge the biggest beneficiary as the proposed revision would enable its local government to raise debt of NT$256.7 billion, up from the current NT$45 billion, Huang said.
The debt limit would remain unchanged for the central government, Huang said, adding that the ministry would soon submit the proposal to the Cabinet and seek approval from the legislature.
Asia Optical announces venture
Digital camera equipment maker Asia Optical Co (亞洲光學) said on Monday it would set up a Hong Kong joint venture with Singaporean electronics maker Flextronics International Ltd to manufacture digital cameras.
Asia Optical did not reveal the size of the joint venture, but said in a brief statement that the new company would manufacture digital cameras on behalf of clients in Japan, Taiwan and China.
NT dollar declines slightly
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining NT$0.003 to close at NT$34.788. Turnover was US$865 million.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
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