Taiwan Area News
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CHINA, 2016/01/26
Asian stock markets retreated on Tuesday, snapping a two-day winning streak, following the weak cues overnight from Wall Street and the pullback in oil prices. Investors as well treaded cautiously ahead of monetary policy statements by the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan later in the week.
The Japanese market is notably lower, with the negative lead from Wall Street and the fall in oil prices denting risk appetite. Additionally, a stronger yen hurt exporters' stocks.
In late-morning trades, the benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is declining 319.08 points or 1.86 % to 16,791.83, off a low of 16,683.64 in early trades.
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TAIWAN AREA, 2016/01/06
China said on Tuesday it would allow transit stops in Taiwan for its citizens traveling from three Chinese cities, allowing people from the mainland to travel on from the island for the initial time.
The change is an extra step toward normalizing travel arrangements between the two sides which have enjoyed increasingly close business ties over recent years, and follows the launch last week of their initial telephone hotline.
It comes days before Taiwan goes to the polls for elections likely to put into power a political party that Beijing distrusts.
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AFGHANISTAN, 2016/01/02
World economic increase will be disappointing next year and the outlook for the medium-term has as well deteriorated, the chief of the International Monetary Fund said in a guest article for German newspaper Handelsblatt published on Wednesday.
IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said the prospect of rising interest rates in the United States and an economic slowdown in China were contributing to uncertainty and a higher risk of economic vulnerability worldwide.
Added to that, increase in world trade has slowed considerably and a decline in raw material prices is posing problems for economies based on these, while the financial sector in a lot of nations still has weaknesses and financial risks are rising in emerging markets, she said.
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TAIWAN AREA, 2015/11/15
Whoever becomes president next year will be faced with the major task of improving Taiwan's economy. But it will not be enough for him (or additional likely her) approaching up with only short-term fixes to boost exports or domestic purchases; the country needs a new direction for long-term economic development.
Taiwan managed to transform itself into a powerhouse in the world data technology (IT) industry next correctly identifying it as the next backbone of the country's economy in the 1980s.
Taiwan remains a powerhouse in the IT industry, dominating some of the semiconductor sectors. Its makers collectively still manufacture some 80 % of world's notebook PCs.
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CHINA, 2015/11/09
In Taiwan, opposition politicians instantly voiced their concern about the talks and dozens began to rally in the capital, Taipei. Some called for the impeachment of Ma, noting that before he was re-elected to a second term in office, the president pledged to not meet with China’s leaders or discuss unification.
Just weeks before Taiwan holds general and presidential elections, Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou announced he will hold face-to-face talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Singapore. The conference Saturday will be the initial between Taiwanese and Chinese leaders since 1949 and authorities in China are predicting it will be a “major historic milestone” in the development of cross-strait relations.
China claims democratically ruled Taiwan is part of its own territory and wants the two to reunify. However, support for unification with China in Taiwan is extremely low.
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TAIWAN AREA, 2015/08/26
The chief of Taiwan's leading representative of industries stated yesterday that a return to the predicament of "unpaid work leave" was a possibility due to current economic uncertainties.
Rock Hsu (許勝雄), chairman of the Chinese National Federation of Industries (CNFI) said that whether employees face layoffs or retain their positions without paid work leave was a reflection upon industrial competitiveness and the in general market environment.
He said if Taiwan possessed the means of improving and attracting additional investment , "our concerns would be lessened." The CNFI, which claims to represent the voice of leading Taiwanese industries, has often called on the government to lower barriers to investment and increase government efficiency. Hsu blasted the government for implementing "half measures" while lacking the administrative resolve to implement countermeasures against the gloomy economic environment. He as well called on the government to encourage Taiwanese businesses based internationally to re-base themselves on the island and to make it easier for businesses to get around existing land and labor regulations.
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CHINA, 2015/08/24
Ideologically speaking, Taipei City Mayor Ko Wen-je may belong to the so-called deep-green, pro-independence fundamentalist camp, but his ideology seems to have seldom gotten in the way of his pragmatism, which was on display in his just concluded trip to China.
Of course, by welcoming Ko to a three-day official visit to Shanghai, China has as well shown some sort of pragmatism, or at least it took a tiny step back from its unwavering ideology against any form of the pro-Taiwan independence cause.
It was a necessary step that Beijing had to take, judging from the political climate in Taiwan: the China-friendly Kuomintang lost a humiliating defeat in last November's local elections to the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party, which stands a good luck of taking the presidency and controlling the parliament come next year.
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TAIWAN AREA, 2015/05/03
Taiwan stocks fell on Friday ahead amid worries about increase, particularly in its all-significant tech businesses. However, shares are likely to recover and continue a rally that has added 14% to the major index of the Taiwan Stock Exchange in the completed year, according to a statement last week by Nomura Securities. The index lost 33.78 points to 9,820.05 on Friday.
The index has been gaining in part on the performance of semiconductor and other tech shares that are benefiting from ties to Apple and spread of the Internet additional deeply into daily lives through connected appliances and other devices. Taiwan tech companies that have performed well include Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, the chipmaker led by former Forbes Asia Businessman of the Year Morris Chang, whose shares have gained a quarter in the completed year.
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AFGHANISTAN, 2015/01/20
Low oil prices will not provide a sufficient updraught to dispel the clouds hanging over the world economy, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday.
In a sign of its increasing gloom about the medium term economic outlook, the IMF cut its world economic increase forecasts by 0.3 % points for both 2015 and 2016, despite believing cheaper oil represents a “shot in the arm”.
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AFGHANISTAN, 2015/01/20
The richest 1 % are likely to control additional than half of the globe’s total wealth by next year, the charity Oxfam reported in a study released on Monday. The warning about deepening world inequality comes just as the world’s business elite prepare to meet this week at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The 80 wealthiest people in the world all own $1.9 trillion, the statement found, nearly the same all shared by the 3.5 billion people who occupy the bottom half of the world’s gain scale. (Last year, it took 85 billionaires to equal that figure.) And the richest 1 % of the people, who number in the millions, control nearly half of the world’s total wealth, a share that is as well increasing.
