Taipei - Taiwan stocks ended 2.28 per cent lower Friday, losing its 5,000-point support as jittery investors sold strongly, despite Wall Street's overnight rally, dealers said.

Unaffected by Wall Street's sharp 400-point gain overnight, the Taiex index opened lower and extended its downtrend throughout the trading session to close at 4,960.40, a drop of 115.57 points or 2.28 per cent.

Dealers said investors were worried about the prospect of the market when the Taiwan Stocks Exchange resumes the daily 7- per-cent bottom limit next week. The regulator halved the bottom limit two weeks ago to try to cushion the slump of the local stocks in response to US financial turmoil.

Frankfurt  - Chinese organizers of a culture show next year in the German city of Frankfurt said on Thursday that Taiwan would be welcome to take part it the effort to promote new books written in Chinese.

Every year, one nation attends the Frankfurt Book Fair as guest of honour, bringing a retinue of authors and musicians to drum up interest from German media and reading public. Turkey has the role this year.

Taipei - Taiwan stocks dropped more than 3 per cent in morning trading Thursday, dampened by overnight drops on Wall Street and the death of Wang Yung-ching, founder of Taiwan's petrochemical giant Formosa Group, dealers said.

The Taiex index had fallen 164.5 points, or 3.14 per cent to 5,081.69 two and a half hours after the stock market opened.

Stocks of all six listed companies of the Formosa Group fell sharply on the death of the group's founder, dubbed the "god of management" and the second wealthiest man in Taiwan.

Taipei - Taiwan's Kaohsiung Harbor may slip out of the world's top ten owing to a fall in container volume while other major ports show robust growth, Taiwan radio said Tuesday.

Broadcasting Corp of China (BCC), quoting a Transport Ministry report, said that in the first three months in 2008, Kaohsiung Harbour, the world's seventh-busiest container port, handled 7.52 million TEUs (20-foot equivalent unit), down 0.79 per cent year-on- year.

Taipei - Some 30 Taipei residents were being treated for discomfort caused by a mysterious powder which spilled out of a broken bottle on a Taipei street Tuesday.

The incident occurred Tuesday morning on Chunghua Road when a glass bottle fell from a vehicle and was run over by another car, releasing a yellow powder from the bottle, cable television channel ETTV said.

The powder flowed into the air, causing itchy eyes and breathing difficulties to some 30 passers-by and motorcyclists.

Taipei - Taiwan's property market, hit hard in the last few months by the global downturn and a drastic domestic stock plunge, is likely to enter a recession from next year, property dealers and analysts said.

"Beginning next year, the property market here is likely to see obvious slowdown, which could last two to four years," said Chang Chin-oh, land economics professor at Taipei's National Chengchi University.

Stanley Su, senior researcher of Sinyi Real Estate Inc, a leading Taiwan property brokerage group stressed that even with the slowdown, its scale would be smaller in Taiwan than that in other countries.