The Central Bank of China (中央銀行) sold at least US$200 million in US greenbacks Thursday in an effort to prevent a slump in the New Taiwan dollar, reports said yesterday.
The intervention came as the PLA began a seven-day artillery firing exercise near the island of Kinmen.
Meanwhile, international investors sold more than US$150 million worth of NT dollars as they remitted money out of Taiwan.
Central Bank governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) and foreign exchange department head George Chou (周阿定) passed Thursday in the bank's foreign-exchange trading room monitoring the situation.
Major foreign exchange banks also received phone calls from central bank officials expressing their concern, according to local media.
The NT dollar strengthened to 30.814 against the US dollar on Thursday, from 30.824 the previous day, on volume of US$432 million. The turnover was about 7 percent lower than the daily average over the past six months.
The NT dollar rose again yesterday, closing at $30.808 against the greenback. Interbank US dollar trading totaled US$315 million.
Central bank officials told reporters yesterday that the bank's target range is between 30.45 and 30.95 against the greenback.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
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Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day