Petroleum goes up in price
Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油) will raise prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) sold to households and motorists, reflecting higher international crude oil and fuel prices, the company said in a statement.
The cost of importing LPG this month rose 13.4 percent compared with last month, it said.
Chinese Petroleum will increase the price of the bottled gas sold to households by NT$1 a kilogram, or 6.4 percent, the company said in a statement. It will raise the price of LPG used to fuel cars by as much as NT$1.10 a kilogram, or 7.4 percent.
The price increases will be effective from midnight last night, the company said.
In related news, Chinese Petroleum said it may restart a fire-damaged refinery unit early next month after completing repairs.
Pacific Sogo gets new chief
Chung Chin (鍾琴), former Cab-inet's spokeswoman, will soon take the chairwoman position at Pacific Sogo Department Stories Co (太平洋崇光百貨), local TVBS reported, citing company chairman Lai Yung-chi (賴永吉).
Pacific Sogo, the country's largest department store chain, is expected to hold a board meeting later this week to finalize the new appointment, Lai said.
Chung, currently a senior researcher at the Chung-hua Institution for Economic Research (中經院), was not available for comments.
Far Eastern Group (遠東集團), the parent of Far Eastern Department Stores Ltd (遠東百貨), spent NT$1 billion on investments in Pacific Sogo in October of last year. The move will make Far Eastern the nation's largest department store operator, said Douglas Hsu (徐旭東), chairman of Far Eastern Group.
Pacific Sogo currently has eight department stores in this country and another eight in China, with an annual profit of NT$3 billion on revenues of NT$40 billion.
Allianz President cuts jobs
Allianz President Life Insurance Co (統一安聯人壽), a venture between Allianz AG and Uni-President Enterprises Co (統一企業), said it fired dozens of workers and is seeking acquisitions.
The company, which has 200 office workers and about 400 sales agents, fired as many as 40 employees in the payment-collection division, a local newspaper said.
Marketing & Communications manager Celia Ling declined to say how many people were fired.
``The payment collection role is becoming unimportant,'' she said. ``We will let agents handle some of the collections to increase their contact with customers and encourage customers to pay through banks for convenience.''
The company, which has about 120,000 customers, may team up with convenience stores for payments, she said.
Allianz President Insurance Taiwan is seeking potential acquisitions on the island this year to expand, said Ling, who declined to elaborate.
Exchange to share with London
The Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp (TSE, 證交所) said yesterday that it is scheduled to sign a memorandum of understanding this week with the London Stock Exchange to share information and seek new business opportunities.
"London is one of the financial centers in the world. The ties are expected to help Taiwanese enterprises enter the European market," a TSE spokesman said.
NT dollar dips
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded lower against its US counterpart, dropping NT$0.027 to close at NT$34.778 on the Taiwan foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$277 million, compared with last Friday's US$319.5 million.
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
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