TAIWAN

Central Bank Unveils Plans to Ease Credit: Taiwan’s central bank, under strong pressure to curb the appreciation of the Taiwan dollar and boost the shaky stock market by lowering interest rates, announced a package of measures last week to ease credit. “These measures will maintain monetary stability while helping local businesses to lower costs and sustain the economic growth rate,” Deputy Governor Yu Chen told a news conference. He said the central bank will cut its equivalent of the U.S. discount rate charged on loans to commercial banks by 0.5 of a percentage point to 6.875%, effective Tuesday. Yu said the central bank will also lower its reserve requirements, the fraction of deposits that banks must set aside without using them for loans, on Wednesday. Private bankers said the credit easing is likely to cause their prime lending rates to drop 0.5 or 0.75 of a percentage point in coming days from current levels of 10.75% to 11%.