Key rate likely to be cut
The central bank will probably lower its benchmark interest rate to a record at a policy meeting due to begin at 3pm today, after an expected rate cut in the US yesterday, economists said.
The central bank will probably trim its key rediscount rate to as low as 1.375 percent from 1.625 percent, they said.
The bank has cut its key lending rate 14 times since December 2000, most recently on Nov. 11.
"There seems little harm in taking out some insurance with a 25 basis points cut as the economy probably contracted in the second quarter due to SARS, global demand remains weak, and Taiwan has scant inflation," wrote Rob Subbaraman, an economist at Lehman Brothers, in a research report last Friday.
Share buyback delayed
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) decided to delay plans to buy back 10 percent of its outstanding shares to sometime in the second half of the year.
"The share buyback aims to lift shareholder's earning by reducing issued capital and to strengthen the efficiency of capital use," the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
While details of the repurchase still need to be further discussed with the Chunghwa Telecom Workers Union, it said.
Originally the telecom giant, which the government owns 80 percent shares of it, hopes to fulfill the share buyback before its plan to sell 13.8 percent stake in the company in the form of American Depositary Receipts next month.
The plan was altered because of opposition from the union who has three representatives on the company's 15-member board.
M2 grows 2.6 percent
The nation's money supply grew at the fastest pace in four months last month as foreign investors bought more local stocks and banks boosted investment and lending, the central bank said.
M2, the broadest measure of money supply, grew 2.6 percent from a year earlier after expanding 2.1 percent in April, the bank said in a statement.
M1B money supply, which excludes time deposits and foreign-currency deposits included in M2 money supply, rose 7.1 percent last month after increasing 6.0 percent in April.
M1A, which tracks net currency in circulation plus checking accounts and passbook deposits, grew 7.3 percent after expanding 8.5 percent the previous month, yesterday's report showed.
Total loans and investments by major financial institutions fell 0.4 percent last month after dropping 1.3 percent in April, the central bank said.
Lone Star buys bad loans
Lone Star Funds will buy the bad loans of failed lender Kaohsiung Business Bank (高雄企銀) for NT$8.23 billion (US$238 million), paying less than two-fifths of the face value of the loans.
The Dallas, Texas-based Lone Star beat six other local and foreign companies in the Taipei auction, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement on Tuesday. Kao-hsiung has been in government custody since January last year.
The assets included NT$8.37 billion of corporate lending and NT$13.4 billion of consumer loans that haven't been written off Kao-hsiung books, according to the statement.
The government plans to hold another auction for the remaining operations, assets and liabilities of Kaohsiung after obtaining approval from lawmakers in the next session of legislature.
NT dollar holds steady
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday remained strong against its US counterpart, up NT$0.024 to close at NT$34.556 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$281 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