The nation's first international logistics center in Kaohsiung will be shut down at the end of September because of a contract controversy between its owner and operator. More than 15 tenants in the center, including local branches of DHL, Federal Express and Sony, will be forced to leave their offices there at that time.
"We have no choice but to close it until our dispute with China President Logistics Inc (
The center, Taisugar Logistics Park (
Located in the Kaohsiung Multi-Functional Commerce & Trade Park (
However, as China President Logistics failed to reach the profit target stipulated in the contract ever since it started operation in January last year, Taisugar decided to terminate the contract with China President Logistics by the end of March, Kuan said.
China President Logistics, which initially invested NT$3 billion in the center and has incurred losses of NT$400 million so far, admitted its operation did not run as well as it expected, a company official told the Taipei Times yesterday.
"But we think Taisugar should also bear the responsibility for the business failure to some degree," said Hou Wen-ling (
In addition to the management disagreement with Taisugar, Hou also attributed the center's failure to the slow economy. Taiwan saw its economy grow 3.59 percent in 2002, after witnessing a negative growth of 2.18 percent the previous year.
Hou said the passage of a new free-trade-zone law is expect to develop Kaohsiung port into a free trade port and so bring in a considerable amount of business to the center. The Legislature last month passed the Statute for Establishment and Management of Free Trade Ports (
"But we're sorry to see Taisugar made such a decision ? the business was actually starting to improve. Taisugar's decision drove off many prospective clients," Hou said.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained