■ Taiwan Salt to name directors
Taiwan Salt Co (Taisalt, 台鹽), Taiwan's largest maker of salt and cosmetic products, said it would comply with stock exchange requirements to appoint two independent directors to its nine-member board, Taisalt's general manager, Chiu Wen-an (邱文安), told reporters Monday at the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Chiu spoke after the stock exchange warned last week that the company's shares will be suspended if it cannot elect independent directors within three months.
Chiu said the company will work the problem out soon, without elaborating. Taisalt shares plunged NT$2.30, or 6.8 percent, to NT$31.60 on the TAIEX.
Taiwan Salt, which had its stock market debut on Nov. 18, was unable to appoint independent directors last week because its biggest shareholder, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, was barred from voting by a legislative resolution that requires government agencies to vote for government representatives.
Taisalt shareholders therefore elected six representatives from the ministry. The ministry wanted to vote for four government representatives and two independent directors.
■ ATM fees to drop
Transaction fees charged by banks to clients who make cross-bank withdrawals or transfer money via automatic-teller-machines (ATM) will be cut by NT$1, the Ministry of Finance said in a written press release yesterday.
The ministry's Bureau of Monetary Affairs said it has given its approval to the Financial Information Service Co's (財金公司) proposal to reduce the fees charged for banks' ATM services from NT$4.5 to NT$3.5 per transaction. The bureau said that it will soon hold a meeting with the Bankers Association of the ROC (銀行公會) to finalize the plan and its effective date.
■ Charter flights to Subic Bay
Mandarin Airlines (華信航空) will launch charter flights to Subic Bay in the Philippines on Thursday as more and more Taiwanese tourists visit the former US naval base for sightseeing, the airline announced Monday.
Mandarin Airlines will use a 168-seat Boeing 737-800 to operate the twice-weekly charter flight. Taiwanese tourists do not need visas as long as they stay within the Subic Bay area.
In conjunction with Mandarin Airlines, two Taiwanese travel agencies are providing package tours to Subic Bay.
After US forces left in 1992, the Philippines developed Subic Bay into an export processing zone -- the Subic Bay Industrial Park.
Far Eastern Transport Corp (遠東) has been operating twice-weekly regular flights from Kaohsiung to Subic Bay.
■ Stocks up on the week
The stock market's value was at NT$12.76 trillion (US$375.35 billion) at the end of last week, an increase of NT$571.2 billion, or 4.69 percent, over a week earlier, according to the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp.
Share prices in all 20 categories were up, with plastics posting the largest growth rate -- 38.43 percent. Analysts attributed the market's sharp increase to the listing of Formosa Petrochemical Co (台塑石化) on Friday on the TAIEX, whose total market value is NT$360.6 billion.
Since the beginning of this year, a total of NT$20.333 trillion worth of stocks have changed hands, a daily transaction average of NT$82.65 billion.
■ NT dollar lower
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday continued its weakness against its US counterpart, declining NT$0.009 to close the day at NT$34.061 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$476 million.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”