Taiwan stocks rise, but banks down again on euro zone woes

TAIPEI: Taiwan stocks rose 0.22 percent on Wednesday as investors snapped up tech issues such as TSMC , but banks fell for a second day on concern their loans and investments to the euro zone would be hurt by its debt crisis.

Financial shares shed 0.36 percent. Taiwan's financial institutions together have a T$200 billion exposure to loans and investments in Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland and Portugal, local media reported.

"The exposure is not really that bad because little of them is related to Greece," said Jorden Chen, chief investment officer of Schroders in Taiwan.

"Market sentiment has been weak, however. The euro zone debt crisis is a long-term, structural problem. There is no quick fix to it."

At about 0210 GMT, the main TAIEX index had risen 15.96 points to 7,407.33, recovering from a 2.88 percent plunge in previous session.

Electronics shares was up 0.8 percent, with contract chip maker TSMC up nearly 1 percent.

The Taiwan dollar weakened slightly to trade at T$29.498.

Copyright Reuters, 2011