Taipei Times
Date: Sep 22, 2016
By: Crystal Hsu / Staff reporter

Occupancy rates averaged 64.14 percent for international tourist hotels in Taipei in July, while daily room rates stood at NT$4,445, the Tourism Bureau said on its Web site last week.

The latest occupancy data marked a 4.17 percent retreat from the same month last year, while room dates dropped 2.5 percent, signs of a challenge for the industry as the economy slows and competition sharpens.

STANDARD HOTELS

Standard hotels fared slightly better, with occupancy rates slowing from 72.24 percent to 71.65 percent in July from the same month last year, while daily room rates stood at NT$3,433, almost unchanged from NT$3,440 a year earlier, bureau figures showed.

The retreat is more evident at scenic areas across Taiwan, where international hotels recorded occupancy rates of 62.89 percent, down from 70.56 percent a year earlier, the figures showed.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-09-21
By: Central News Agency

Investors in Taiwan’s stock market largely stayed on the sidelines Wednesday as they awaited decisions by central banks in Japan and the United States on whether they would adjust interest rates.

The market’s weighted index fluctuated early in the trading session, but large-cap electronics and financial stocks rebounded later in the session to push the index above 9,200 points.

The Taiex closed up 66.92 points, or 0.73 percent, at 9,228.50 on relatively low turnover of NT$70.93 billion (US$2.25 billion).

Stocks in old economy sectors such as cement, food, plastics and chemicals, pharmaceuticals and retailing rose as trading got underway but they could not sustain their early momentum.     [FULL  STORY]

CONFIDENTIALITY CONCERN:Chairman Ding Kung-wha said foreign customers may demand compensation that would not be easy to pay if revelations cause them harm

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 22, 2016
By: Crystal Hsu / Staff reporter

The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday bowed to requests from lawmakers to reveal suspicious accounts and transactions at Mega International Commercial Bank’s (兆豐銀行) New York branch, despite concerns the move might lead to a breach of confidentiality.

FSC Chairman Ding Kung-wha (丁克華) agreed to hold a closed-door meeting of the Finance Committee next week with information on 174 transactions involving 76 accounts in 2012 between Mega Bank’s New York branch and its Colon branch in Panama.

The nation’s top financial regulator obtained information during an overseas probe into violations of money-laundering rules by Mega Bank’s New York branch that incurred a US$180 million fine from the New York State Department of Financial Services and a NT$10 million (US$318,167) fine from the commission.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 21, 2016
By: Lisa Wang / Staff reporter, in TAINAN

Qualcomm Inc, the world’s No. 1 mobile phone chipmaker, yesterday said India is a rapidly growing market, adding that it is collaborating with Taiwanese firms to pursue growth opportunities there.

“India is fast-growing. We already read public documents on India and how it is growing [in terms of] the population and their earnings and spending capability,” Qualcomm Technologies Inc president of Asia-Pacific and India Jim Cathey told reporters on the sidelines of a news conference in Tainan to launch an education program backed by wireless technology.

Qualcomm Technologies is a wholly-owned chip designing arm of the San Diego-based chip manufacturer.

Like most developing nations, India faces the challenge of building sound infrastructure to support electronics designing and manufacturing capabilities, Cathey said.     [FULL  STORY]

By: Central News Agency
Date: 2016-09-20
By: Huang Chiao-wen and Y.F. Low

The Investment Commission under the Ministry of Economic Affairs on Tuesday decided to postpone its review of a controversial plan by Far EasTone Telecommunications Co. to acquire a stake in cable TV operator CNS.

The case will be returned to the National Communications Commission (NCC) for reconsideration, Investment Commission Executive Secretary Emile Chang（張銘斌）said.

CNS is the largest cable TV operator in Taiwan, with a customer base of 1.29 million households, accounting for about 26 percent of the local cable TV market share.     [FULL  STORY]

WORRIED:A lack of consumer confidence, caused by cross-strait uncertainty, pension reform and labor disputes, is weighing down on consumption, an economist said

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 21, 2016
By: Crystal Hsu / Staff reporter

Despite an uptick in external demand, Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) yesterday retained its economic growth forecast of 0.8 percent for this year, saying private consumption might disappoint due to strained cross-strait relations.

The nation’s largest financial service provider said that its GDP forecast update factored in a slow, but stable recovery in exports, but the pickup might not be strong enough to make up for a deterioration in domestic demand.

“The slight improvement in exports might not offset the impact of dwindling Chinese tourists on local hotels, restaurants, bus companies and gift shops,” National Central University economics professor Hsu Chih-chiang (徐之強), who led the research team, told reporters.

Exports could continue to recover mildly for the rest of the year, but companies remain conservative about capital spending and consumers are wary of purchasing big ticket items, Hsu said, citing data from different research bodies.

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 19, 2016
By: Ted Chen / Staff reporter

CSBC Corp, Taiwan (台灣國際造船) said delivery of a US$150 million cargo ship would be delayed by about three months due to damage caused by Typhoon Meranti.

The nation’s only publicly traded shipbuilder said that the 14,000 twenty-foot-equivalent unit (TEU) cargo ship commissioned by Canada’s Seaspan Corp would be delivered in December instead of this month, as the vessel sustained damage when the typhoon tore through the company’s shipyard in Kaohsiung on Wednesday last week, it said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange on Friday.

All 38 10cm-thick cables that secured the ship to its moorings snapped under the strain of gusts, sending the ship adrift, the company said.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 19, 2016
By: Lisa Wang / Staff reporter

Siliconware Precision Industries Co (SPIL, 矽品精密) chairman Bough Lin (林文伯) does not plan to retire from the semiconductor industry, despite losing his grip on the company cofounded by his father more than three decades ago.

In the summer of 1984, SPIL started out as a small factory in a three-story building in a Taichung suburb, financed mainly by Lin Chung-li (林鐘隸), Bough Lin’s father.
SPIL was Taiwan’s first chip tester and packager, at the time competing with Texas Instruments Inc and General Electric Co.

Despite its status as the world’s No. 3 chip tester and packager, with an annual revenue of NT$82.84 billion (US$2.61 billion) and a net profit of NT$8.76 billion last year, SPIL was faced with a takeover bid by its bigger rival, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體), in August last year.     [FULL  STORY]