Water levels in many of the nation’s reservoirs remain low, despite a weather system dumping significant rain in northern Taiwan last week.
Several major reservoirs in central and southern Taiwan, where the water shortage has been the most serious, were still at low capacity yesterday, Water Resources Agency (WRA) data showed.
As of 10am, the Baoshan Second Reservoir (寶二水庫), which provides water for the Hsinchu Science Park, was at 12 percent capacity.
Photo: Ou Su-mei, Taipei Times
Liyutan Reservoir (鯉魚潭水庫), which supplies water for Taichung and Miaoli County, and Zengwen Reservoir (曾文水庫) in Tainan, Taiwan’s largest reservoir, were at 15 percent respectively, the data showed.
Meanwhile, two major reservoirs in the north — Feitsui Reservoir (翡翠水庫) in New Taipei City and Shihmen Reservoir (石門水庫) in Taoyuan — were at 88 and 49 percent respectively, the data showed.
To cope with the drought, tap water pressure in Hsinchu County, Miaoli and Taichung has been lowered, and water would be trucked from Taoyuan to Hsinchu, the agency said.
Science and industrial parks in areas with no risk of land subsidence would be allowed to drill temporary wells, it said.
The wells would be sealed once the drought ends, WRA Deputy Director-General Wang Yi-feng (王藝峰) said.
However, former minister of economic affairs Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) said that drilling wells might not help solve the issue, as groundwater levels fall during droughts, local Chinese-language media reported.
To appeal to higher powers amid the drought, the Irrigation Agency yesterday held a rain prayer ceremony at the Jenn Lann Temple (鎮瀾宮) in Taichung’s Dajia District (大甲), one of the nation’s largest temples where the sea goddess Matsu (媽祖) is worshiped.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to