TAIEX closes almost unchanged
Share prices closed little changed yesterday as a rebound led by electronic heavyweights recouped most of early losses on an overnight Wall Street fall, dealers said.
The weighted index fell 0.29 points or 0.01 percent at 4,694.52, off a low of 4,622.49 and a high of 4,723.70, on turnover of NT$70.74 billion (US$2.18 billion).
The market opened lower as investors took cues from the Wall Street weakness on cautious sentiment towards the financially troubled auto sector in the US, dealers said.
However, the market regained momentum as bargain hunters started picking up electronic stocks, which have been badly hit by the current tough global climate, they said.
CPC, Formosa hike prices
The state-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday that gasoline and diesel prices will be raised by NT$0.7 per liter today. The price hike was the first since Sept. 27.
The price for a liter of 98-octane unleaded gasoline will now be NT$23, 95-octane unleaded gasoline will be NT$21.5, 92-octane unleaded gasoline will be NT$20.8 and diesel will be NT$17.5.
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) raised its prices by the same amount.
Electricity consumption falls
Annual electricity consumption may decline for the first time this year, dropping 0.8 percent as economic growth slows, the government said.
The government won’t be seeking bids to build power plants as electricity demand falls, the Bureau of Energy said on its Web site yesterday.
The government had planned earlier this year to issue permits for the construction of generators with a total installed capacity of 1,980 megawatts.
Taiwan won’t need new private generators in the next six years, bureau Deputy Director-General Wang Yunn-ming (王運銘) said.
“We will have enough electricity generating capacity in the next five or six years,” Wang said yesterday.
Yin sees yuan’s dominance
Samuel Yin (尹衍樑), named by Forbes magazine as the 30th richest man in Taiwan this year, expects the yuan to be the dominant currency in Asia within the next decade.
“As China is expanding its domestic demand and reducing reliance on exports to the US, the yuan is increasing in importance,” said Yin, who said his businesses in China, which include the RT-Mart (大潤發) supermarket chain, have annual revenue of about 40 billion yuan (US$5.9 billion). “In five to 10 years, the yuan will become the Asian dollar.”
Yin made the remark in an interview in Shanghai, where he will attend this weekend’s cross-strait forum on banking and investment ties.
He also has a controlling stake in the Ruentex Group (潤泰).
Diana Chen removed
China Development Financial Holding Co (中華開發金控), parent of the nation’s largest venture capital company, removed Diana Chen (陳敏薰) from its board of directors on Thursday at the request of Taiwan Financial Holding Co (台灣金控)
Chen was replaced as the representative of Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行), one of Taiwan Financial’s invested companies, which has the right to appoint three directors.
Earlier this month, lawmakers asked that Chen, who is also the chairwoman of Taipei International Financial Corp (台北金融大樓公司), be removed from her post as chief of Taipei 101 for not turning the skyscraper’s fortunes around.
Chen holds the post at Taipei 101 through China Development’s stake in the company.
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