■SHIPPING
Evergreen replaces chief
Evergreen Marine Corp. (長榮海運), Asia’s biggest container shipping line, announced on Friday that chief executive vice president Wang Chung-jinn (王宗進) will replace Jack Yen (顏火燿) as the company’s president tomorrow. Wang will also serve as the company’s spokesman, while Yen will become a vice chairman at the nation’s largest container shipping company.
■AUTOMOBILES
Volkswagen net income falls
Germany’s Volkswagen AG, Europe’s largest carmaker by sales, said on Friday its net income for last year fell 80 percent to 960 million euros (US$1.3 billion) from nearly 5 billion euros in 2008. The drop came as revenue fell 8 percent, to 105.2 billion euros from nearly 114 billion euros a year earlier, even though deliveries to customers were up 1.3 percent year-on-year at 6.34 million vehicles from 2008. Volkswagen said its revenue and operating profit for this year are expected to exceed the previous year’s figures.
■FINANCE
Postbank Ireland to close
Postbank Ireland, jointly owned by the Irish post office and French bank BNP Paribas, said on Friday it would stop accepting new customers and wind down by the end of the year. Postbank chairman Thierry Schuman said a number of factors had led to the decision, including “the unprecedented circumstances in which the financial services sector finds itself, the highly competitive savings market within Ireland and the absence of a perspective of profitability in current market circumstances.”
■FINANCE
Fannie Mae asks for cash
Fannie Mae is asking for a federal cash infusion of US$15.3 billion after posting another big loss in the fourth quarter of last year. The mortgage finance company, seized by federal regulators in September 2008, lost US$16.3 billion, or US$2.87 a share in the October-to-December period. That takes into account US$1.2 billion in dividends paid to the Treasury Department. It compares with a loss of US$25.2 billion or US$4.47 a share, in the year-ago period.
■ICELAND
Credit under pressure
The breakdown in talks on how Iceland should compensate Britain and the Netherlands for money lost in the collapse of an Icelandic bank has put pressure on Iceland’s already weak credit status, ratings agency Moody’s said on Friday. Reykjavik’s failure “to resolve the Icesave dispute puts the Icelandic government’s BAA3 rating under downward pressure,” Moody’s said in a statement. “Moody’s believes the failure to reach a new agreement is likely to lead to an extended delay of the IMF program, a weaker economic recovery and potentially, political instability,” it said.
■AGRICULTURE
Coffee producers meet
Delegates representing coffee producers and consumers met in Guatemala on Friday to discuss global warming’s effect on coffee growing, as producers warned climate change has forced them to find new growing grounds. Coffee producers say they are getting hammered by global warming, with higher temperatures forcing growers to move to higher, cooler and more prized ground, putting their cash crop at risk. “In the last 25 years the temperature has risen half a degree in coffee producing countries, five times more than in the 25 years before,” said Nestor Osorio, head of the International Coffee Organization.
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.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
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
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