Chain stores to take taxes
The Ministry of Finance is expected to authorize the nation's five major convenience chains to collect taxes on the government's behalf by the end of August.
Vice Minister of Finance Sam Wang (王得山) on Thursday called a meeting with major chain-stores and local banks, including President Chain Store Corp's (統一超商) 7-Eleven, Hi-Life International Co (萊爾富), Family Mart Co (全家), Niko Mart Co (福客多) and OK Mart Co (富群), the ministry said.
About 6,000 stores of the five chains would be allowed to act as taxmen to take property taxes, land taxes, small business taxes and vehicle registration taxes, the ministry said. No service fees would be charged on taxpayers.
Banks lose money
The nation's banks lost a combined NT$104.5 billion before tax last year, the Ministry of Finance said, attributing the huge losses mainly to the banks' efforts to write off their bad loans, which amounted to NT$410.79 billion.
The official said that of the 52 domestic banks, 22 lost money last year.
The top five banks that made profits last year were the Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中信銀), the China Development Industrial Bank (中華開發), the Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行), TaipeiBank (台北銀行) and the Taishin International Bank.
The banks that suffered the greatest losses were the Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行), the Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化銀行), the First Commercial Bank (第一銀行), the United World Chinese Commercial Bank (世華銀行) and the Farmers Bank of China (農民銀行).
Formosa units close for repair
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) will shut two units at its Mailiao refinery for regular maintenance at the end of this month, a company official said.
Formosa Petrochemical will shut a residual fluid catalytic cracker and a residuum desulfurization unit for regular maintenance that will take a month to complete, the official said.
The residual fluid catalytic cracker can process as much as 73,000 barrels a day of heavy oil such as fuel oil into higher-priced products such as gasoline.
Yu touts digital content
Premier Yu Shyi-kun said yesterday that the nation's digital content industry production is expected to reach NT$370 billion (US$10.57 billion) over the next six years.
Yu said that the digital content industry, which includes things such as animation design, will help boost the economy and that countries around the world are now attaching great importance to the industry, with this country being no exception.
The government is vowing to nurture more talent for the digital content industry so as to upgrade the nation's competitiveness, Yu said yesterday at the opening ceremony for a digital content hall at a computer exhibition currently being held at the Taipei World Trade Center.
High-tech use ranked highly
Taiwan is one of the top 10 countries in the global rankings of national ability to use new information and communication technology, according to a global information technology report by the World Bank and the World Economic Forum.
Finland leads in the global rankings. The US and Singapore are in the second and third place respectively.
NT dollar strengthens
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded higher against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.041 to close at NT$34.751 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$319.5 million.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”