HP chief offers advice
Taiwan should keep politics out of economic issues if it wants to thrive in the China market and develop a higher profile in the international community, the chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard (HP) Taiwan said yesterday.
Addressing a monthly meeting of senior government officials at the Presidential Office, HP Taiwan Country Manager Rosemary Ho (何薇玲) noted that this country had failed to enjoy a similar level of prominence in the global political and cultural arenas, which indicates that the nation has not fully used its successful commercial promotion strategies in the world community.
Ho said she was delighted to see the passage of the Statute Governing the Establishment and Manage-ment of Free Ports (自由貿易港區設置管理條例) earlier this month that will allow for freer flow of goods, capital and personnel between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and with other countries.
The government must use the statute to develop Taiwan into a regional transshipment hub, Ho said, adding that it should strenuously push for the opening of direct transportation links.
Taiwanese invest in China
Taiwanese companies' investment in China rose almost a third in the first half of the year as manufacturers expanded there to take advantage of growing demand and lower costs.
The nation's approved investment in China climbed 31 percent from a year earlier to US$2 billion, the Investment Commission said in a statement yesterday.
As Taiwanese companies invest more heavily in China, so too are their rivals from the rest of the world. Foreign direct investment in China rose by about a third in the first half to US$30.3 billion, while inward investment into Taiwan during the period dropped 22 percent to US$1.2 billion, the statement showed.
Last month alone, Taiwanese companies' investment in China dropped 10 percent to US$296 million, while investment into Taiwan fell 19 percent as SARS disrupted travel, hampering negotiations.
CPC chooses Yunlin
State-run Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油) is likely to locate a petrochemical investment worth NT$600 billion (US$17.4 billion) in Yunlin County, a company spokeswoman said yesterday.
"We are still studying the location, but it is likely we will locate the project in the government-
developed industrial zone in Yunlin," she said.
Chinese Petroleum is seeking other companies to join the project, which was expected to cover an area of 1,697 hectares, she said.
"We are hoping foreign investors will participate in the investment," she added.
The project will include an oil refinery to process 450,000 barrels of crude oil a day and an ethylene plant with annual capacity of 2.60 million metric tonnes.
Tax on new instruments planned
The government plans to impose a 6 percent tax on interest from securities backed by property, a Chinese-language newspaper said, citing unidentified officials.
Property trusts must raise a minimum of NT$2 billion ($58 million) to be listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp (證交所), the paper said. Regulations may be announced by the end of this month.
Taiwan is the latest Asian market to allow property developers and owners to raise cash by selling trusts backed by shopping malls, apartments and offices, the rentals from which help pay yields to buyers of the securities.
NT dollar strengthens
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded higher against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.043 to close at NT$34.425 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$398 million.
Agencies
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