Financials help boost TAIEX
The benchmark TAIEX closed up 0.35 percent yesterday, led by the financial sector, which was boosted by expectations that the central bank will decide in its upcoming policy meeting to raise its key interest rates, dealers said.
The weighted index rose 31.21 points to 8,892.31.
The market opened up 5.57 points and moved higher as buying focused on financial stocks on high hopes their profitability will be lifted by the central bank’s imminent announcement of interest rate hikes, dealers said.
There is general agreement in the market Taiwan’s central bank will announce a 0.125 percentage point hike on Thursday since the local economy has rebounded strongly, Mega Securities (兆豐證券) analyst Alex Huang (黃國偉) said.
Central bank issues CDs
The central bank issued NT$302 billion (US$10.2 billion) in certificates of deposit (CD) yesterday, more than the NT$299.8 billion that matured, the monetary authority said in a statement on its Web site yesterday.
The central bank sold 30-day certificates at 0.69 percent, 91-day CDs at 0.73 percent and 182-days at 0.83 percent, according to the central bank’s statement.
CSBC chair sees more revenues
The new chairman of the nation’s largest shipbuilder, CSBC Corp Taiwan (CSBC, 台灣國際造船), forecast yesterday that the firm will post revenues of NT$30 billion next year, about NT$4 billion more than this year.
Tan Tai-ping (譚泰平), who assumed the CSBC chairmanship yesterday, said that the world economy is recovering gradually from the financial crisis of 2008 and last year, prompting shipyards worldwide to expand production capacity.
Tan said he expected a 20 percent to 30 percent growth next year in the number of ships built by his company.
Outage could affect China Steel
Taiwan’s China Steel Corp (中鋼), the country’s biggest steelmaker, said a power outage at a Kao-hsiung mill on Sunday may reduce its net income by NT$60 million, executive vice president Chung Le-min (鍾樂民) said in a telephone interview yesterday. The company’s four blast furnaces in Kaohsiung are “back in operation,” he said.
CPC tries second plant start-up
State-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) planned to start its No. 4 naphtha cracker in Kaohsiung for the second time yesterday after shutting the unit for maintenance last month.
The refiner had tried to resume output at the unit earlier yesterday, vice president Paul Chen (陳綠蔚) said by telephone. Dark smoke was detected at about 12:15pm and that eventually cleared at 1:10pm, Chen said.
The cracker processes naphtha into ethylene, a material used to make plastics, chemicals and fabrics. CPC operates three such processing plants with a combined annual ethylene output capacity of 1.1 million tonnes, including the No. 4’s 385,000 tonnes.
The No. 4 plant was closed on Nov. 3 for scheduled repairs, Chen said.
MOF unveils product list
The Ministry of Finance yesterday published product origin measures under which goods from Taiwan and China must meet certain requirements to qualify for tariff reductions under the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA).
The measures stipulate only goods that originate from or have components from either countries qualify for lower tariffs, the ministry said, adding goods with materials from third-party locations must meet product-specific rules to apply for the privilege.
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Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
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