Share prices rebound
Share prices on the Taiwan Stock Exchange closed 1.59 percent higher yesterday on a rebound led by semiconductor issues.
A strong rebound in the US stock market helped Taiwan’s shares reverse the decline of the three previous trading days, when the benchmark index fell nearly 265 points, analysts said.
The TAIEX rose 118.37 points yesterday to finish at 7,547.98. A total of 3.15 billion shares changed hands on market turnover of NT$91.5 billion (US$2.86 billion).
Foreign investors and Chinese Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDIIs) were net sellers of shares for the ninth consecutive session, selling NT$1.49 billion more in shares than they bought.
Gainers outnumbered losers 1,796 to 1,183, with 269 stocks remaining unchanged.
Flat-panel decision due soon
Taiwan may announce a decision to relax restrictions on flat-panel display makers investing in China over the next two weeks, a Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) official said yesterday.
“There is chance that the Cabinet will announce” the move before the Lunar New Year that begins Feb. 14, Woody Duh (杜紫軍), head of the Industrial Development Bureau, said.
The government expects to begin briefing lawmakers on a proposed economic cooperation framework agreement with China next month, Duh said.
Lithium fuel cell R&D boosted
The government has increased its annual budget for assisting research and development institutes in the development of lithium fuel cells as part of efforts to promote the development of the electric vehicle industry.
The budget was increased from last year’s NT$120 million to NT$160 million this year, Council for Economic Planning and Development officials said yesterday.
Electric automobiles carry high price tags because of the expensive batteries they require and this has become a major factor in the low popularity of green vehicles.
The council said the cost of the batteries alone accounts for nearly 50 percent of the cost of making an electric car.
Last year, Japan introduced fuel cell-leasing services in an attempt to reduce the cost to the public of electric vehicles, the council said, adding that local businesses could adopt a similar model.
Costco to invest NT$30bn
Costco Wholesale Corp., the biggest US warehouse club, plans to invest NT$30 billion in Taiwan to build a distribution center and add stores, a MOEA official said.
Costco will spend NT$1 billion on a distribution center at Dayuan (大園), Taoyuan County, near Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, said an official at the ministry’s Economics Affairs’ inbound investment division.
Costco plans 20 new stores, including in Tainan and Kaohsiung, he said, declining to specify a time period for the investment.
Costco opened the first of its six stores in Taiwan in 1997.
NT dollar gains ground
The New Taiwan dollar strengthened for a second day as gains in US home sales and a rally in regional equities bolstered investor appetite for riskier emerging-market assets.
The NT dollar climbed 0.2 percent to NT$32 against its US counterpart as of the 4pm close, Taipei Forex Inc said. The currency touched NT$32.101 on Tuesday, matching the weakest level since Dec. 31.
The currency may strengthen to NT$31.8 by the end of next month, said Tim Condon, head of Asia research at ING Groep NV in Singapore.
CHIP WAR: Tariffs on Taiwanese chips would prompt companies to move their factories, but not necessarily to the US, unleashing a ‘global cross-sector tariff war’ US President Donald Trump would “shoot himself in the foot” if he follows through on his recent pledge to impose higher tariffs on Taiwanese and other foreign semiconductors entering the US, analysts said. Trump’s plans to raise tariffs on chips manufactured in Taiwan to as high as 100 percent would backfire, macroeconomist Henry Wu (吳嘉隆) said. He would “shoot himself in the foot,” Wu said on Saturday, as such economic measures would lead Taiwanese chip suppliers to pass on additional costs to their US clients and consumers, and ultimately cause another wave of inflation. Trump has claimed that Taiwan took up to
A start-up in Mexico is trying to help get a handle on one coastal city’s plastic waste problem by converting it into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. With less than 10 percent of the world’s plastics being recycled, Petgas’ idea is that rather than letting discarded plastic become waste, it can become productive again as fuel. Petgas developed a machine in the port city of Boca del Rio that uses pyrolysis, a thermodynamic process that heats plastics in the absence of oxygen, breaking it down to produce gasoline, diesel, kerosene, paraffin and coke. Petgas chief technology officer Carlos Parraguirre Diaz said that in
SUPPORT: The government said it would help firms deal with supply disruptions, after Trump signed orders imposing tariffs of 25 percent on imports from Canada and Mexico The government pledged to help companies with operations in Mexico, such as iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), shift production lines and investment if needed to deal with higher US tariffs. The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday announced measures to help local firms cope with the US tariff increases on Canada, Mexico, China and other potential areas. The ministry said that it would establish an investment and trade service center in the US to help Taiwanese firms assess the investment environment in different US states, plan supply chain relocation strategies and
Japan intends to closely monitor the impact on its currency of US President Donald Trump’s new tariffs and is worried about the international fallout from the trade imposts, Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato said. “We need to carefully see how the exchange rate and other factors will be affected and what form US monetary policy will take in the future,” Kato said yesterday in an interview with Fuji Television. Japan is very concerned about how the tariffs might impact the global economy, he added. Kato spoke as nations and firms brace for potential repercussions after Trump unleashed the first salvo of