The central bank strengthened its warning to local trading companies over their currency purchases as it seeks once again to tamp down speculation on foreign exchange markets and maintain the stability of the New Taiwan dollar.
Importers and exporters should only buy or sell the US dollar in a timely fashion based on their actual needs and not listen to exaggerated or false market predictions, the central bank said in a statement on Sunday.
The bank also urged analysts and the media not to comment on the local currency market in a speculative manner, or to make exchange-rate forecasts based on feelings.
Photo: CNA
The central bank also said it had found foreign investors buying NT dollars to invest in the local securities, but holding onto the currency instead. The authority said such moves might be intended to profit from the local exchange rate, which contravenes the central bank’s rules for foreign exchange settlements.
The statement represents more forceful wording to trading companies after the monetary authority’s earlier appeals for market calm appear to have gone unheeded. It is the fourth time the bank has issued a statement on the currency market since the NT dollar surged massively at the beginning of last month.
As of Friday, the NT dollar had strengthened for nine straight weeks, its longest streak since January 2020. The currency yesterday closed down 0.2 percent at NT$29.988 against the US dollar in Taipei trading.
The surge in the local currency is a concern for the export-dependent economy. It comes amid speculation that the central bank might let the NT dollar gain as it seeks a trade deal with the US. The US has long accused Taiwan of artificially maintaining a weakened currency to support its exporters.
PRICE HIKES: The war in the Middle East would not significantly disrupt supply in the short term, but semiconductor companies are facing price surges for materials Taiwan’s semiconductor companies are not facing imminent supply disruptions of essential chemicals or raw materials due to the war in the Middle East, but surges in material costs loom large, industry association SEMI Taiwan said yesterday. The association’s comments came amid growing concerns that supplies of helium and other key raw materials used in semiconductor production could become a choke point after Qatar shut down its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production and helium output earlier this month due to the conflict. Qatar is the second-largest LNG supplier in the world and accounts for about 33 percent of global helium output. Helium is
STRONG INTEREST: Analysts have pointed to optimism in TSMC’s growth prospects in the artificial intelligence era as the cause of the rising number of shareholders The number of people holding shares of chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) hit a new high last week despite a decline in its stock price, the Taiwan Depository and Clearing Corp (TDCC, 台灣集保) said. The number of TSMC shareholders rose to 2.46 million as of Friday, up 75,536 from a week earlier, TDCC data showed. The stock price fell 1.34 percent during the same week to close at NT$1,840 (US$57.55). The decline in TSMC’s share price resulted from volatility in global tech stocks, driven by rising international crude oil prices as the war against Iran continues. Dealers said
DOMESTIC COMPONENT: Huang identified several Taiwanese partners to be a key part of Nvidia’s Vera Rubin supply chain, including Asustek, Hon Hai and Wistron Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), addressing crowds at the company’s biggest annual event, unveiled a variety of new products while predicting that its flagship artificial intelligence (AI) processors would help generate US$1 trillion in sales through next year. During a two-and-a-half-hour keynote address, Huang announced plans to push deeper into central processing units (CPUs) — Intel Corp’s home turf — and introduced semiconductors made with technology acquired from start-up Groq Inc. The company even said it was developing chips for data centers in outer space. At the heart of Huang’s speech was the message that demand for computing power
OPTIMISTIC: Inflation still has a chance of remaining below the central bank’s 2 percent alert level, as Taiwan’s economy is resilient with healthy exports, the NDC minister said Taiwan’s inflation could exceed 2 percent this year if oil prices continue to surge amid escalating tensions in the Middle East, prompting the government to reassess its economic outlook, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. DGBAS Minister Chen Shu-tzu (陳淑姿) told lawmakers at a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee that the agency’s earlier growth forecast of 1.68 percent in the consumer price index (CPI) and 7.71 percent for GDP this year did not account for the ongoing Middle East conflict and would need revision, if tensions persist. The previous forecast assumed an average international crude price of
RSS