■ Yunlin County set for boom
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) painted a rosy picture of the future for the south-central Yunlin County yesterday, saying that Yunlin has the promise to become a new high-tech manufacturing stronghold as well as a tourist haven.
Addressing a press conference marking the opening of a Yunlin arts and folklore exhibition at the Presidential Office, Chen said the Yunlin complex of the Central Taiwan Science-based Industry Park (中部科學園區) is promising to attract investment to the tune of NT$1 trillion (US$29 billion) when it becomes commercially operational in 2010.
The Yunlin complex -- construction of which began in 2003 -- is forecast to create some 50,000 jobs once it is fully occupied by high-tech companies, Chen said.
■ Gas prices rise at midnight
The state-run Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油) announced yesterday that the company will hike prices for natural gas by an average 1.9 percent starting at midnight tonight, a company statement said.
The hikes are necessary to reflect the soaring prices of international crude oil and liquid natural gas. After the adjustment, prices of natural gas range from NT$8.04 to NT$10.43 per cubic meter, depending on the applications.
■ Chunghwa sales rise
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) said yesterday its 2003 sales beat its target by nearly two percent on the back of increased subscriptions for its cellphone and broadband services.
Chunghwa Telecom's sales last year rose 1.7 percent to NT$179.14 billion (US$5.3 billion), the company said in a statement.
■ LCD TV makers to hit jackpot
Taiwan's LCD TV makers are forecast to seize a 20 percent market share internationally this year, a ratio that is predicted to hit 40 percent by 2007, the Topology Research Institute (拓墣產業研究所) reported on Thursday.
With improved quality and prices falling around the world, the LCD TVs are expected to replace traditional CRT TVs and increasingly become an indispensable household appliance. When the price gap between the two types narrows to two-fold from the current four to five-fold, more than 10 percent of households will be able to afford an LCD TV, the institute said.
Topology forecast that the international market scale is about 10 million units this year and that the number will rise to nearly 40 million units in 2007.
Taiwan-based manufacturers will make around 2.4 million units this year, accounting for 23.5 percent of the world market, according to the institute's forecast.
The institute also forecast a price drop in LCD TVs this year, ranging from 25 percent to 17 percent for different sizes. Slimmer profits might push Japanese and US companies to place a larger number of orders with Taiwanese contractors, it said.
■ Overseas buyers set record
Overseas investors bought a net NT$16 billion (US$474 million) of Taiwan shares today, the second highest amount on record.
The TAIEX has risen 5.7 percent this year. The record NT$17.6 billion in foreign purchases was set on April 17, 2002, followed by a 33 percent plunge in the benchmark index in the following six months, according to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Overseas investors bought a net NT$548.9 billion of Taiwanese stocks last year, according to the Securities and Futures Commission, helping spur a 32.3 percent rally in the TAIEX last year.
■ NT dollar still rising
The New Taiwan dollar rose for a second week against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.009 to close at NT$33.788 on the Taipei foreign exchange market yesterday.
Turnover was US$687 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],”
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