Taiwanese shares rebound
After eight consecutive days of losses, share prices rebounded sharply yesterday, with the TAIEX moving up 134.55 points, or 1.78 percent, to close at 7,694.58.
The bourse opened at 7,630.16 points and fluctuated between 7,756.77 and 7,607.56. It had shed 796.86 points in the previous eight trading days.
A total of 3.93 billion shares changed hands on market turnover of NT$118.08 billion (US$3.69 billion).
Foreign institutional investors and China qualified domestic institutional investors were top sellers of NT$7.18 billion in shares, down from the previous day’s NT$7.42 billion in shares.
Gainers outnumbered losers 2,542 to 718, with 163 stocks remaining unchanged.
NPL ratio drops to 1.15%
The banking sector’s asset quality slightly improved last month, as the non-performing loan (NPL) ratio dropped by 0.14 percentage points month-on-month to 1.15 percent, Financial Supervisory Commission data showed yesterday.
Bad loans by the nation’s 37 banks totaled NT$214.9 billion at the end of last month — a 9.43 percent decline from one month earlier, commission data showed.
The sector granted a total of NT$18.61 trillion in loans last month, up from NT$18.37 trillion in November, while the coverage ratio — loans covered by banks’ provisions — edged up by 8.13 percentage points month-on-month to 90.50 percent, the data showed.
Meanwhile, the commission’s data showed that the sector’s loans to small and medium-sized businesses grew nearly 5 percent in the past six months to total at NT$3.2 trillion last month, or 42.7 percent of the nation’s outstanding corporate loans.
Lin to lead TPR delegation
Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Sheng-chung (林聖忠) will lead a delegation to attend the second trade policy review (TPR) meeting in Geneva in July since Taiwan’s entered the WTO in 2002.
Lin will attend the TPR meetings, which promote transparency of trade policies and measures, on July 5 and July 7, where he will answer questions from WTO members.
Meanwhile, officials from the WTO Secretariat visiting Taiwan to study economic and trade developments, as well as related policies and measures, attended a meeting at the Bureau of the Foreign Trade yesterday.
The meeting, presided over by bureau Director-General Huang Chih-peng (黃志鵬), was mainly to explain procedures.
Chi Mei pushes merger plan
Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子), the nation’s second-largest liquid-crystal display maker, now plans to complete a merger with Innolux Display Corp (群創光電) by April 1, instead of the March 1 date it announced on Jan. 11, the Tainan-based company said in an exchange filing yesterday.
The last day of trading in Chi Mei shares will be March 19, the company said.
Separately, Innolux is likely to supply liquid-crystal displays for Apple Inc’s new iPad device, along with South Korea’s LG Display Co, researcher ISuppli Corp said in an e-mailed report on Wednesday.
The iPad uses the same touch-screen technology as Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch products, the California-based researcher said.
NT dollar gains ground
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.081 to close at NT$31.999.
A total of US$770 million changed hands during the day’s trading. The local currency opened at NT$32.100 and fluctuated between NT$31.959 and NT$32.100.
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