Central Bank of China Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) yesterday said that 5.5 percent preferential interest mortgage loans may be made available to home buyers as soon as next week, providing adequate financing for the plan can be arranged.
Perng told lawmakers that the government is evaluating whether the Construction and Planning Administration can finance the NT$900 million subsidy needed to start the loan scheme. If the government cannot find the funds needed to finance the loans, implementation of the plan will have to wait until the start of next year, when the budget will cover the cost of the scheme.
The Cabinet has recently announced three categories of preferential mortgage loan packages for homebuyers. The first of the measures is a 3 percent mortgage loan for low-income, first-time homebuyers between the ages of 20 and 40. The other two measures both offer a 5.5 percent mortgage rate. But while one is specifically for married couples between the ages of 20 and 40 with children, and who don't own their own home, the other sets no restrictions on an applicant's age.
It also does not stipulate that the borrowers must be first-time homebuyers.
The two 5.5 percent measures will require another NT$1 billion and NT$1.7 billion, respectively.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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