Sogo to reopen today
Pacific Sogo Department Store (太平洋崇光百貨) will reopen its Chunghsiao East Road store today after closing its doors for a three-day long disinfection.
"We've conducted a thoroughly disinfection and hope the move will help us regain consumer confidence," Sogo vice president Lee Kuang-rong (李光榮) said yesterday.
To lure customers back, the retailer will launch a five-day sale today. Selected items including cosmetics, clothing and consumer electronics are expected to be marked down 50 percent.
Sogo plans to donate revenue generated from the sale to SARS-hit victims.
Sogo, which saw a 90-percent drop in consumer traffic after two shoppers and a cashier developed SARS-like symptoms last week, said Mother's Day revenue dropped 50 percent from last year's NT$520 million, according to Lee.
A total of 175 Sogo employees were send to home for quarantine last Tuesday. To date, these staff has shown no signs of SARS symptoms, Lee said.
Food fair canceled
An international food fair scheduled for Taipei next month has been canceled due to SARS, the fair's organizer, the China External Trade Development Center (CETRA, 外貿協會), said yesterday.
CETRA said 575 manufacturers were scheduled to take part in Food Taipei 2003 slated for June 11to 14 at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall.
CETRA polled manufacturers and found that about 80 percent of them wanted to withdraw from the fair. Many said their foreign buyers had informed them they would be unable to come to Taipei due to the SARS outbreak.
Flat-panel forum victim of SARS
An international flat-panel conference originally slated to take place May 27 and 28 in Taipei has been postponed due to concerns over SARS, the event's organizers announced over the weekend.
Taiwan was the No. 2 maker of the panels used in flat-screen computer displays and televisions last year, when it produced 30 percent of the world's flat panels, according to US-based computer display research firm DisplaySearch.
This was the first time Taiwan was to host the annual conference. Organizers DisplaySearch, CETRA and the Japan Interchange Association now plan to hold the event on Aug.14 and 15.
Duty clarified on mask imports
Imports of surgical masks are tax-free up to NT$3,000, an official of the Taipei Customs Bureau said yesterday. If the total value of the import, including shipping costs, exceeds NT$3,000, the importer must pay import tax and business tax, he said. If the FOB value exceeds US$20,000, an import license is required.
The business tax on imported surgical masks is 5 percent. The tariff on surgical masks made of textiles is 10 percent and the tariff on special masks with removable filters is 3 percent.
Epidemic could hurt exports
The spread of the SARS virus could cut the nation's export orders by NT$40 billion (US$1.15 billion) for the second quarter of this year, a local newspaper said yesterday.
Citing a Ministry of Economic Affairs survey, the paper said the outbreak of SARS could see sales for domestic business reduced by NT$60 billion for the same period.
In the first quarter of this year, export orders rose 10.17 percent from a year earlier to US$37.67 billion. Export orders last year totaled US$150.95 billion, up 11.23 percent.
NT dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded higher against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.06 to close at NT$34.715 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$238 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