Insurance changes approved
The Legislative Yuan yesterday approved a law change that allows insurers to invest more of their assets overseas.
According to the amended Insurance Law, domestic insurers will be able to invest as much as 35 percent of their assets abroad, up from 20 percent now.
That may help insurers at a time when their profits have been declining in a saturated domestic market and suffered from falling stock returns in the nation. The TAIEX slumped 20 percent last year.
Shipper seeks progress on links
A shipping operator yesterday urged the government to speed up the opening of direct links to improve the nation's economy.
Lin Shing-san (林省三), vice chairman of Evergreen Group (長榮集團), said in the absence of direct cross-strait links, shipping has to travel via a third destination, incurring extra time and costs, which he added is not economically efficient.
Lin made the remarks before attending a closed-door meeting with Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Ling-san (林陵三) yesterday morning. Evergreen's Lin complained about the declining number of Taiwan-registered ships, saying that many ships are now registered in other countries to facilitate shipping to China.
Fuh-Hwa plans merger
Fuh-Hwa Financial Holdings Co (復華金控) may announce a merger with an unlisted financial company in the first three months of this year, a local newspaper said, citing company chairman Chang Chang-pang (張昌邦).
Its lending arm, Fuh-Hwa Bank (復華銀行), has small operations that would benefit from expansion, the report said. Fuh-Hwa is also planning to merge its securities unit with that of an unidentified rival, according to the report.
Fuh-Hwa Financial in August raised its annual profit forecast by
5.2 percent after the Taiwanese brokerage took over Asia Pacific Bank (泛亞銀行) through a share swap.
Taiwan last year allowed the creation of holding companies for banks, securities companies, insurers and money managers because it wants lenders to combine into bigger entities to compete with foreign rivals as the financial industry is deregulated.
Companies eye rail stakes
ING Group NV, Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) and Taiwan Life Insurance Co (台灣人壽) will buy stakes in the state-owned Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (台灣高鐵), a local newspaper said, citing ING Aetna Life Insurance vice president Chiang Kuo-liang (蔣國樑).
ING plans to buy a NT$1.5 billion (US$43 million) stake in the company, which may offer a return on investment as high as 8 percent, the report quoted Chiang as saying.
Fubon Financial, Taiwan's No. 2 financial group, plans to buy a NT$1 billion stake, while Taiwan Life will invest NT$500 million, the report said.
Foreign reserves rise
Taiwan's foreign currency reserves rose to US$161.6 billion last year, the world's third-largest after that of Japan and China, the central bank said yesterday.
By the end of last month, the nation's foreign reserves stood at US$161.6 billion, up US$2.5 billion from November and up US$39.4 billion from 2001, the Central Bank of China said in a statement.
NT dollar weakens
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday continued to lose ground against its US counterpart in line with weak regional currencies, dropping NT$0.015 to close at NT$34.806 on the Taipei foreign-exchange market.
Turnover was US$316 million, compared with the previous day's US$416 million.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
Clambering hand-over-hand, sweat dripping into his eyes, a durian laborer expertly slices a cumbersome fruit from a tree before tossing it down to land with a soft thump in his colleague’s waiting arms about 15m below. Among Thailand’s most famous and lucrative exports, the pungent “king of fruits” is as distinctive in its smell as its spiky green-brown carapace, and has been farmed in the kingdom for hundreds of years. However, a vicious heat wave engulfing Southeast Asia has resulted in smaller yields and spiraling costs, with growers and sellers increasingly panicked as global warming damages the industry. “This year is a crisis,”
HIGH-TECH: As leading-edge process technologies become more complicated, only a handful of players are able to provide design services, the company’s CEO said Artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) yesterday said that revenue would grow significantly again in 2026 after adding a major AI chip customer, reversing moderation amid a product transition next year. The Taipei-based application-specific IC (ASIC) designer reiterated its strong revenue growth forecast for this year and 2026 after its stock plummeted about 23 percent to NT$3,145 from a peak of NT$4,085 on March 6 amid growing competition. Alchip said it has built strong partnerships with cloud service providers (CSP), denying that it had lost orders to smaller competitors such as Faraday Technology Corp (智原). Faraday said it has secured