TAIWAN DOLLAR AND RESERVES SEEN RISING MORE SLOWLY Recent government moves to curb capital inflow have temporarily helped to slow the rise of Taiwan's foreign exchange reserves and to stabilise the local dollar against the U.S. Currency, officials and bankers said. Central bank governor Chang Chi-Cheng told reporters the reserves rose only about 500 mln U.S. Dlrs in the past two weeks and the local dollar appreciated more slowly against the U.S. Dollar. Chang said, "The pace of increase in our reserves is much slower now than before and our currency is getting more stable." He said the reserves, mainly the result of the trade surplus with the U.S., Rose at the rate of two to three billion U.S. Dlrs a month between January and May. The reserves, the world's third largest after Japan and West Germany, now total well over 60 billion U.S. Dlrs. On June 2 the central bank froze overseas borrowings of local and foreign banks and cut the limit on central bank purchases of forward U.S. Dollars from banks to 40 pct from 90 pct of the value of a contract. Local and foreign bankers said the June 2 measures had drastically limited their ability to lend foreign exchange to importers and exporters. They said their overseas borrowings and forward dollar transactions showed a drastic decline with some banks registering a fall of up to 30 pct. Bank dealers said the Taiwan dollar has stabilised against the U.S. Currency this week after rising two to five Taiwanese cents a day between June 2 and 13 compared with a rise of five to eight cents in May. The bank dealers said the central bank, which had previously bought U.S. Dollars heavily, sold at least 1.1 billion U.S. Dlrs in the past two weeks to meet commercial demand. They said they expected the government to keep the local dollar stable in the near term to give breathing space to businesses experiencing slower exports because of the rise of more than 23 pct in the value of the Taiwan dollar since September 1985. The Taiwan dollar opened at 31.09 to the U.S. Dollar today, unchanged from yesterday. Keh Fei-Lo, vice president of First Commercial Bank, said, "It appears the central bank's move to curb the capital inflow is quite successful." Vice economic minister Wang Chien-Shien said the slower rise in foreign exchange reserves would help ease pressure from Washington over the large U.S. Trade deficit with Taiwan. Over the past year Taiwanese businessmen have delayed imports of machinery and production equipment because of exchange rate uncertainty, he said. The stable exchange rate would help boost imports, particularly from the United States.