1st-Qtr account surplus widens
Taiwan's current-account surplus widened from a year earlier in the first quarter, boosted by investment income on the central bank's foreign reserves, the central bank said.
The surplus was US$7.2 billion, up from US$7 billion, the central bank said in a statement.
The income surplus, which tracks investment earnings, increased to a quarterly record of US$3.3 billion from US$1.9 billion, the central bank said. Taiwan has the world's third-largest foreign reserves after Japan and China.
China delays anti-dumping action
China postponed implementation of anti-dumping measures on cold-rolled steel products from some Asian and European countries, the government said.
China will delay taking action against imports of the products from Russia, South Korea, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Taiwan even though the government claims they sold at below cost in China, cutting the profit of local producers, the Ministry of Commerce said.
Commission OKs investments
The Investment Commission yesterday approved 344 foreign investment plans in Taiwan in the first four months of this year, an increase of 6.17 percent over the same period last year. These projects are expected to bring in US$739.64 million, sliding by 20.59 percent compared to the same period last year.
The commission further gave a green light to 659 investment projects in China for the first four months of the year, which account for US$1.42 billion. The number of approved cases and capital grow 68.97 percent and 73.62 percent respectively compared to the same period last year.
Chi Mei plans share sales
Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp(奇美電子), Taiwan's second-largest maker of flat-panel displays for
personal computers, said it plans to sell 1 billion new shares, raising a possible NT$22 billion (US$635 million) to fund expansion.
The company plans to sell 500 million new shares overseas, Chi Mei said in a statement following an annual meeting of shareholders yesterday.
Chi Mei also has approval from local stock authorities to sell another 500 million shares domestically between next month and July, company finance manager Eddie Chen (陳彥松) said.
"The plan for the overseas share sale was approved in yesterday's shareholder meeting," Chen said. "The timing for the overseas sale hasn't been confirmed yet."
The sales together would raise NT$22 billion based on yesterday's closing price per
share of NT$21.90.
Public works spending to double
Taiwan plans to almost double its additional spending on public infrastructure next year, part of a strategy to spur domestic demand and keep deflation at bay, a local newspaper said, citing Vice Premier Lin Hsin-i (林信義).
Taiwan will spend NT$100 billion (US$3 billion) more on public works next year, the paper said. The government, which pushed through the legislature a NT$58.4 billion public works program for this year, will exceed its debt limit next year, the paper said.
The economy is forecast to slow as SARS crimps demand, investment, trade and consumer spending. In January, the legislature passed a budget that estimated a NT$237 billion deficit for this year. The Cabinet is required to keep its borrowings to less than 15 percent of total expenditure a year.
NT dollar falls
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded lower against its US counterpart, dropping NT$0.067 to close at NT$34.695 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$490 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