ECONOMY
Money supply increases
The nation’s money supply increased last month, but the narrow gauge M1B — cash and cash equivalents — slowed to its lowest level in four years at 4.57 percent as people cut cash positions in favor of time deposits and insurance policies, the central bank said yesterday. The bank shrugged off concerns of a downturn in equity investment interest, saying the local bourse has benefited from continued foreign fund inflows. Foreign fund inflows totaled US$9.28 billion last quarter, higher than the US$6.55 billion recorded a year earlier, the bank said. The broad money gauge M2 — which includes foreign currency deposits, time deposits and M1B — advanced at 3.64 percent, slower than M1B, lending support to liquidity mobility, the bank said.
CEMENT MAKERS
Chia Hsin to sell TCCI stake
Chia Hsin Cement Corp (嘉泥) yesterday said its board has approved a plan to sell its stake in TCC International Holdings Ltd (TCCI, 台泥國際集團), a joint venture between the company and Taiwan Cement Corp (台灣水泥), to support TCCI’s privatization. The plan came as Taiwan Cement announced its proposal to privatize TCCI and delist its shares from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Taiwan Cement is the largest stakeholder in TCCI, owning a 63.05 percent stake, while Chia Hsin has a 9.7 percent stake, company data showed. Chia Hsin shareholders are to receive 0.42 Taiwan Cement shares for each TCCI common share, according to a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
E-COMMERCE
Amazon opens Taiwan office
Amazon.com Inc yesterday launched its Taiwan office to help local companies explore opportunities in the global business-to-business market. The office is tasked with connecting Taiwanese businesses to Amazon’s 300 million active customers and 40,000 institutional clients worldwide, Amazon Global Selling Asia head Cindy Tai (戴竫斐) said yesterday. The US giant’s electronic commerce and logistics services are well suited to helping Taiwan’s export-oriented companies tap into the global market without setting up costly distribution deals, Tai said.
CHIPMAKERS
Novatek cuts its dividend
Novatek Microelectronics Corp (聯詠), which supplies chips that control flat-panel displays, yesterday announced a plan to distribute a cash dividend of NT$7 per share, lower than the NT$9 per share the company paid last year. That translates into a dividend yield of 6.31 percent when compared with the stock’s closing price of NT$111 yesterday. Last year, Novatek made NT$5 billion (US$165.2 million) in net profit, or earnings per share of NT$8.22, down from NT$6.4 billion, or earnings per share of NT$10.52, the previous year.
AIRLINES
TransAsia agrees sale
TransAsia Airways Corp (復興航空), which ended operations on Nov. 22 last year because of insurmountable financial woes, has reached an agreement for a buyer to conditionally acquire 11 of its aircraft for US$364 million, the airline said. However, the highest bidder for the 11-plane package consented to TransAsia selling any of the 11 airplanes to the second-highest bidder because the deal could take a long time to complete, the airline said in a statement released on Sunday. Based on that condition, TransAsia has decided to sell four A330s and A321s to the second-highest bidder, with whom it would sign a contract today, the statement said.
France cannot afford to ignore the third credit-rating reduction in less than a year, French Minister of Finance Roland Lescure said. “Three agencies have downgraded us and we can’t ignore this cloud,” he told Franceinfo on Saturday, speaking just hours after S&P lowered his country’s credit rating to “A+” from “AA-” in an unscheduled move. “Fundamentally, it’s an additional cloud to a weather forecast that was already pretty gray. It’s a call for lucidity and responsibility,” he said, adding that this is “a call to be serious.” The credit assessor’s move means France has lost its double-A rating at two of the
AI BOOST: Although Taiwan’s reliance on Chinese rare earth elements is limited, it could face indirect impacts from supply issues and price volatility, an economist said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) has sharply raised its forecast for Taiwan’s economic growth this year to 5.6 percent, citing stronger-than-expected exports and investment linked to artificial intelligence (AI), as it said that the current momentum could peak soon. The acceleration of the global AI race has fueled a surge in Taiwan’s AI-related capital spending and exports of information and communications technology (ICT) products, which have been key drivers of growth this year. “We have revised our GDP forecast for Taiwan upward to 5.6 percent from 4 percent, an upgrade that mainly reflects stronger-than-expected AI-related exports and investment in the third
Mercuries Life Insurance Co (三商美邦人壽) shares surged to a seven-month high this week after local media reported that E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控) had outbid CTBC Financial Holding Co (中信金控) in the financially strained insurer’s ongoing sale process. Shares of the mid-sized life insurer climbed 5.8 percent this week to NT$6.72, extending a nearly 18 percent rally over the past month, as investors bet on the likelihood of an impending takeover. The final round of bidding closed on Thursday, marking a critical step in the 32-year-old insurer’s search for a buyer after years of struggling to meet capital adequacy requirements. Local media reports
RARE EARTHS: The call between the US Treasury Secretary and his Chinese counterpart came as Washington sought to rally G7 partners in response to China’s export controls China and the US on Saturday agreed to conduct another round of trade negotiations in the coming week, as the world’s two biggest economies seek to avoid another damaging tit-for-tat tariff battle. Beijing last week announced sweeping controls on the critical rare earths industry, prompting US President Donald Trump to threaten 100 percent tariffs on imports from China in retaliation. Trump had also threatened to cancel his expected meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea later this month on the sidelines of the APEC summit. In the latest indication of efforts to resolve their dispute, Chinese state media reported that
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