Business and Finance

Sung Ming-yen wins bantamweight ONE fight in China

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 25, 2016
By: Adrian Hardie / Staff reporter

Taiwanese bantamweight Sung Ming-yen made short work of Sunoto Peringkat in his return to the ONE Championship cage after more than a year’s absence, taking only 31 seconds to choke out the Indonesian on Saturday night in Changsha, China.

Hsinchu’s Sung caught Sunoto in a standing guillotine choke, then took his back to finish the choke in guard for his third ONE win in three fights.

The win improves Sung’s record to 5-1-0, while Sunoto, fighting his third ONE fight after back-to-back wins, fell to 3-2-0.

In the main event, ONE bantamweight champion Bibiano “the Flash” Fernandes continued his dominance of the division, winning his fourth defense of his title with a first-round submission of the Philippines’ Kevin Belingon.     [FULL  STORY]

New home mortgages climb to record

LOOSER POLICY:While the number of loans increased, the average interest rate for new housing loans fell 0.011 percentage points after the central bank cut key rates

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 25, 2016
By: Staff writer, with CNA

New home mortgages extended by five major banks hit a new high last month as home buyers rushed to complete transactions in a bid to shun a higher tax burden resulting from a tax reform effective from this month, the central bank said.

Citing its own statistics, the central bank on Friday said that the five major lenders extended NT$86.37 billion (US$2.56 billion) in mortgages last month, more than double the NT$38.04 billion recorded in November last year.

Last month’s figure also rose sharply by NT$44.49 billion from the same period in 2014, data showed.     [FULL  STORY]

Cold front takes toll on agriculture, fishery industries

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/01/24
By: Yeh Tzu-kang, Yang Sz-ruei, Tsai Yi-chu, Bien Chin-feng and Evelyn
Kao

Taipei, Jan. 24 (CNA) The strongest cold spell to hit Taiwan in 10 years over

Milk fish farmers in Tainan.

Milk fish farmers in Tainan.

the weekend has taken a toll on the fishery and agricultural industry in southern Taiwan and has caused irreparable damage to 500 hectares of crops in Taoyuan in the north and nearly 200 hectares in Kaohsiung in the south, agriculture authorities reported Sunday.

The cold wave has decimated fish stock at farms in central and southern Taiwan, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said, although it added that so far, only sporadic cases of mass fish die-offs were reported in Tainan in the south.

The council urged fish farmers to take precautions to protect their stocks during such cold spells.

Several milkfish farm owners in Qigu in Tainan reported that the cold weather, which sent the temperature down to around 5 degrees Celsius early Sunday, has inflicted severe damage on their stocks.     [FULL  STORY]

EVA Airways reports unrealized losses of NT$5bn

TOP TO BOTTOM:Analysts said that while airlines face pressure due to reduced fuel surcharges and hedging losses, their bottom lines benefit from lower fuel costs

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 25, 2016
By: Ted Chen / Staff reporter

EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) on Friday last week reported NT$5.48 billion (US$162.59 million) in unrealized losses from its fuel hedging positions as of Jan. 15, an increase of NT$1.93 billion from the end of last year.

The unrealized losses are to offset benefits from falling international crude oil prices, as procurement costs have been locked in for the next two years, the nation’s second-largest carrier said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.

EVA Airways said global oil prices have been declining at a pace that exceeded the company’s expectations, leading to unrealized losses from ongoing hedging contracts.     [FULL  STORY]

Wholesale prices of fresh vegetables up by 13%: TAPM

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-01-24
By: Ko Lin, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Fresh vegetable prices in Taipei have gone up by 13 percent as a result of 6731005the cold weather blanketing the island, the Taipei Agricultural Products Marketing Co (TAPM) revealed Sunday.

The TAPM revealed that fruit and vegetable wholesalers have purchased a total of 1,565 metric tons of agriculture produce in the morning, priced at NT$32.9 per kilogram on average, which is 13 percent higher than the average NT$29.1/kg on Saturday.

The company said the rise was due to a depleting stockpile in Taipei as demand for vegetables in restaurants across the city has gone up amid the cold front.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan online auction platform seeks listing in Hong Kong

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/01/23
By: Jeffery Wu and Frances Huang

Taipei, Jan. 23 (CNA) Ruten Auction (露天拍賣), a Taiwan-based online

Courtesy of Ruten

Courtesy of Ruten

auction platform, is seeking a stock listing in Hong Kong as part of its efforts to extend its reach to the greater China market.

Ruten, the largest e-auction platform in Taiwan, is a joint venture between Taiwan’s e-commerce operator PC Home Inc. (網路家庭) and its U.S. counterpart, eBay Inc.

Jan Hung-tze (詹宏志), chairman of Ruten and PC Home, said that the online auction site had been considering listing its shares in the United States and Hong Kong, and has finalized the plan to go to Hong Kong.

In the past year, Ruten has consulted with capital market experts and investment bankers to choose Hong Kong as a listing venue in a bid to boost the company’s global visibility. Jan said that the presence of Ruten will tell global investors that the online auction company can parallel its counterparts in China and Japan.     [FULL  STORY]

Innolux ranks as 2nd-largest global TV panel supplier in 2015

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/01/23
By: Pan Chi-i and Frances Huang

Taipei, Jan. 23 (CNA) Innolux Corp. (群創), one of Taiwan’s leading flat panel 201601230018t0001makers, ranked as the second-largest TV panel supplier in the world in 2015, up one notch from a year earlier.

The ranking was on the back of relatively low production costs, which helped the company grab a bigger market share, according to Taipei-based market information advisory firm TrendForce Corp. (集邦)

Citing a research report from its panel research unit WitsView, TrendForce said that Innolux benefitted from its higher competitive edge in production of 39.5-inch TV panels to receive more orders, while it also won a bid to supply TV screens to the Mexican government.

Innolux shipped 51.73 million TV screens in 2015, up 3.1 percent from a year earlier. It was the first time it had taken second place in global TV panel supply, TrendForce said.     [FULL  STORY]

Retail, food services sales hit record high in 2015

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/01/22
By: Huang Chiao-wen and Y.F. Low

Taipei, Jan. 22 (CNA) Sales in Taiwan’s retail industry and food and 201601220022t0001beverage services in 2015 totaled NT$4.02 trillion and NT$421.1 billion, respectively, both record highs, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said Friday.

The figures represent growth of 0.3 percent and 2.7 percent, respectively, from the previous year, the ministry said.

Wholesale industry sales, however, declined 3.9 percent to NT$9.73 trillion in 2015, it said.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan unemployment falls to 15-year low in 2015

Taiwan Today
Date: January 22, 2016

Taiwan’s jobless rate was 3.78 percent in 2015, down 0.18 of a percentage

Taiwan’s job market remains resilient in 2015 despite challenging conditions at home and abroad. (CNA)

Taiwan’s job market remains resilient in 2015 despite challenging conditions at home and abroad. (CNA)

point from 12 months earlier to its lowest level in 15 years, according to the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics Jan. 22.

The latest DGBAS statistics revealed that this was the best result for the period since 2000, with the number of unemployed falling to 440,000, a decrease of 17,000 or 3.72 percent from a year ago.

Those with jobs tallied 11.2 million, up 119,000 or 1.08 percent, while the average time spent job-seeking was 25 weeks, or 0.9 of a week less than before. The labor participation rate went up 0.11 of a percentage point to 58.65 percent, the highest since 1996.

“Such encouraging numbers indicate that while the local job market was under pressure from a slack economy, the situation has not been as severe as anticipated,” said Chang Yun-yun, deputy director of the DGBAS Department of Census.     [FULL  STORY]

Annual industrial output drops 1.66%

SLOWING DECLINE:The Ministry of Economic Affairs forecast that production would continue to fall this month at a slower rate due to semiconductor inventory digestion

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 23, 2016
By: Lauly Li / Staff reporter

Industrial production declined 6.17 percent last month, the eighth consecutive month of annual contraction, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
The result translated into a 1.66 percent decline in industrial output from 2014 and was the first annual decline since 2013, the ministry said.

“The annual decline last year was the largest drop since the global financial crisis in 2009,” Department of Statistics Deputy Director-General Yang Kuei-hsien (楊貴顯) told a news conference.     [FULL  STORY]