China ties drive TAIEX higher
The TAIEX closed 2.28 percent higher yesterday on hopes of closer economic links with China after the government lifted its restrictions on Chinese investors, dealers said.
The index rose 146.81 points to 6,578.97 on turnover of NT$105.53 billion (US$3.22 billion).
Gainers outnumbered losers 1,846 to 449, while 106 stocks remained unchanged.
The market opened higher and outperformed other markets in the region, spurred by the lifting of the decades-old restrictions on investment by Chinese individuals and businesses, analysts said.
“Asset-related and banking plays led the early trade, as investors believed they would benefit from the announcement,” Capital Securities (群益證券) analyst Chen Yu-yu (陳育娛) said.
Delegation leaves for Beijing
50-member delegation of legislators and bank representatives left yesterday for a five-day visit to Beijing to gain a deeper understanding of China’s banking sector, ahead of the possible signing of a memorandum of understanding on financial supervision cooperation between Taiwan and China.
The delegation, led by ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆), is composed of 15 lawmakers on the Legislature’s Finance Committee, Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行) chairwoman Susan Chang (張秀蓮), Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐國際商銀) chairman Wang Rong-jou (王榮周) and the heads of many other banks.
The delegates will be visiting Chinese financial and banking regulators — the China Banking Regulatory Commission, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission and the China Securities Regulatory Commission — and state-run banks. They will also meet with Wang Yi (王毅), head of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office.
Banking restrictions lifted
Banks and financial institutions are now allowed to offer their services and lend to Chinese companies and Chinese individuals that have Taiwan residency permits as part of the government’s opening measures to Chinese investment, the Financial Supervisory Commission said in a statement on Tuesday.
Domestic banks can also extend foreign-currency loans to Chinese companies that have received permission to set up branches in Taiwan, the commission said.
Simplified Chinese added to site
The Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會) added an option of using simplified Chinese characters to navigate its trade services Web site yesterday.
The simplified Chinese version of Taiwantrade allows traders in China to better grasp developments in Taiwan’s industrial and export sectors, TAITRA said.
The non-profit trade-promotion organization said that it received more than 9,000 inquiries about products or trade opportunities from China, Hong Kong and Macau in the first six months of this year, despite the global economic slowdown.
AIG to sell Taiwanese assets
American International Group Inc (AIG), the insurer bailed out by the US government, has agreed to sell the assets of its Taiwanese credit-card operation to Far Eastern International Bank (遠東商銀) for undisclosed terms.
The transaction, subject to regulatory approval, is expected to be completed in the third quarter, the New York-based insurer said in a statement on Tuesday.
NT dollar edges higher
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.033 to close at NT$32.785. A total of US$853 million changed hands.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).