TAIEX passes 7,900
Shares in Taiwan got a boost from further inflows of foreign funds yesterday, to close above the 7,900-point mark, dealers said.
Although Wall Street made a minor correction overnight, the gains the US market posted on Wednesday prompted investors to chase share prices in Taiwan’s market, which had lagged behind others in the region, they said.
The local bourse was closed on Thursday for a public holiday.
The weighted index closed up 66.65 points, or 0.84 percent, at the day’s high of 7,964.63, from an early low of 7,917.72, with turnover of NT$80.60 billion (US$2.72 billion).
Foreign institutional investors were net buyers of NT$5.52 billion in shares.
Workers on unpaid leave down
The number of workers on unpaid leave has decreased by 1,420 over the past two weeks, government statistics released yesterday revealed.
As of Thursday, 2,216 workers from 42 companies had reached agreements with their employers to take unpaid leave, with the number of workers furloughed hitting a four-month low, the Council of Labor Affairs said.
EBRD projects not taken up
Taiwanese companies should grasp business opportunities in infrastructure projects supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the bank’s consultant said yesterday.
No Taiwanese companies have submitted tenders to work on EBRD’s infrastructure projects since the bank’s establishment in 1991, said Bill Huang, a senior consultant at European Bank.
However, a local consultancy company owner said that problems such as a language barrier or lack of mutual understanding are often the reason why these opportunities are not taken up.
PCB industry faces negativity
The production value of Taiwan’s printed circuit boards (PCBs) is expected to rise by 3.3 percent this year, to NT$539 billion (US$18.2 billion), from a year earlier on the back of the global economic rebound, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) said on Thursday.
Despite output growth this year, Taiwan’s PCB industry is still faced with negativity, including a weakening PC industry that could impact on PCB demand, the ITRI said.
While tablet computers are gaining popularity, international brands are competing against each another by offering low-cost models that could depress the bottom line of the PCB sector, the ITRI added.
However, the falling Japanese yen is expected to help local PCB firms lower their operating costs by creating cheaper purchase prices for raw materials and production facilities from Japan, it said.
Star Travel merger called off
Star Travel Corp (燦星國際旅行社), an online travel agency in listed on the over-the-counter (OTC) market, on Wednesday announced it would terminate its merger with Life Travel & Tourist Service Co Ltd (五福旅行社) due to a request made by Life Travel.
Star Travel had announced the merger with Life Travel last week, a move which was to make Star Travel one of the five largest travel agencies in Taiwan.
However, in the days following the announcement, Life Travel employees, suppliers and corresponding banks expressed concern, resulting in Life Travel calling off the merger.
New Taiwan dollar gains
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the US dollar yesterday, increasing by NT$0.039 to close at NT$29.666.
Turnover totaled US$580 million during the trading session.
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MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it plans to double investment in data center-related technologies, including advanced packaging and high-speed interconnect technologies, to broaden the new business’ customer and service portfolios. The chip designer is redirecting its resources to data centers, mainly designing application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities for cloud service providers. The data center business is forecast to lead growth in the next three years and become the company’s second-biggest revenue source, replacing chips used in smart devices, MediaTek president Joe Chen (陳冠州) told a media event in Taipei. “Three or four years
Motorists ride past a mural along a street in Varanasi, India, yesterday.
Until US President Donald Trump’s return a year ago, when the EU talked about cutting economic dependency on foreign powers — it was understood to mean China, but now Brussels has US tech in its sights. As Trump ramps up his threats — from strong-arming Europe on trade to pushing to seize Greenland — concern has grown that the unpredictable leader could, should he so wish, plunge the bloc into digital darkness. Since Trump’s Greenland climbdown, top officials have stepped up warnings that the EU is dangerously exposed to geopolitical shocks and must work toward strategic independence — in defense, energy and
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