Foreign exchange reserves up
The nation’s foreign exchange reserves stood at US$300.12 billion last month, up US$5.935 billion from a month earlier, on rising exchange rates for the euro, the British pound and other currencies held by the central bank, the monetary regulator said yesterday.
“Foreign exchange reserves denominated in these currencies appreciated against the base currency, the US dollar,” Department of Foreign Exchange Deputy Director-General Lin Sun-yuan (林孫源) said.
Lin said the central bank’s foreign reserve management strategy also contributed to the increase.
The gain did not alter Taiwan’s fourth ranking in foreign exchange reserve possession, behind China, Japan and Russia.
Domestic gas prices to drop
Domestic gasoline prices will fall by NT$0.2 per liter and diesel prices will fall by NT$0.3 per liter effective today, state-owned oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) and its private rival, Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), announced yesterday.
After the adjustment, CPC’s price for a liter of 98-octane unleaded gasoline will be NT$26.4, the company said.
The firm’s 95-octane unleaded gasoline will cost NT$24.9 a liter, 92-octane unleaded gasoline will cost NT$24.2 and diesel will be priced at NT$21.4.
UMC signs agreement with LSI
United Microelectronics Co (UMC, 聯電), the world’s second-largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday it had signed a cross-license agreement with LSI Corp to settle the long-term patent disputes between the two.
LSI is a Milpitas, California-based chip and storage designer.
The companies agreed to extensively cross-license patents by Dec. 31, 2012, a UMC statement filed to the Taiwan Stock Exchange said.
CSBC to distribute dividends
State-run CSBC Corp, Taiwan (CSBC, 台灣國際造船) will distribute a NT$1.1 dividend per share that includes NT$1 in cash and NT$0.1 (or 1 percent) in stock.
The dividend payout will be subject to shareholders’ approval at the annual company general meeting scheduled on June 23, CSBC said in a stock exchange filing yesterday.
CSBC said it also planned to raise NT$66.61 million by issuing 6.66 million new shares from retained earnings for the stock dividend.
Cathay posts US$18.2m profit
Cathay Financial Holdings Co (國泰金控) said its banking unit posted a pretax profit of NT$606 million (US$18.2 million) last month.
Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) had pretax profit of NT$1.63 billion for the first three months of the year, Taiwan’s largest listed financial-services company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
The Taipei-based company didn’t provide comparative figures from a year ago.
Local currency posts gains
The New Taiwan dollar completed its fifth weekly gain, the longest winning streak in a year, after stocks advanced and world leaders agreed on measures to revive the world economy.
The NT dollar rose 1.2 percent this week to NT$33.38 versus the US currency as of the 4pm closing time, Taipei Forex Inc said. It climbed 0.6 percent yesterday.
“Risk appetite, the stocks rally, and the positive news from the G20 summit should all be supportive to regional currencies,” said David Cohen, director of Asia economic forecasting at Action Economics in Singapore. “The central bank could probably tolerate the gains a bit longer, as long as global demand is picking up, which is good news for exports.”
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
Taiwanese manufacturers have a chance to play a key role in the humanoid robot supply chain, Tongtai Machine and Tool Co (東台精機) chairman Yen Jui-hsiung (嚴瑞雄) said yesterday. That is because Taiwanese companies are capable of making key parts needed for humanoid robots to move, such as harmonic drives and planetary gearboxes, Yen said. This ability to produce these key elements could help Taiwanese manufacturers “become part of the US supply chain,” he added. Yen made the remarks a day after Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are jointly
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) expects its addressable market to grow by a low single-digit percentage this year, lower than the overall foundry industry’s 15 percent expansion and the global semiconductor industry’s 10 percent growth, the contract chipmaker said yesterday after reporting the worst profit in four-and-a-half years in the fourth quarter of last year. Growth would be fueled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, a moderate recovery in consumer electronics and an increase in semiconductor content, UMC said. “UMC’s goal is to outgrow our addressable market while maintaining our structural profitability,” UMC copresident Jason Wang (王石) told an online earnings
MARKET SHIFTS: Exports to the US soared more than 120 percent to almost one quarter, while ASEAN has steadily increased to 18.5 percent on rising tech sales The proportion of Taiwan’s exports directed to China, including Hong Kong, declined by more than 12 percentage points last year compared with its peak in 2020, the Ministry of Finance said on Thursday last week. The decrease reflects the ongoing restructuring of global supply chains, driven by escalating trade tensions between Beijing and Washington. Data compiled by the ministry showed China and Hong Kong accounted for 31.7 percent of Taiwan’s total outbound sales last year, a drop of 12.2 percentage points from a high of 43.9 percent in 2020. In addition to increasing trade conflicts between China and the US, the ministry said
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