The New Taiwan dollar yesterday declined by NT$0.025 to close at NT$33.253 against the US greenback on the Taipei foreign exchange market, on turnover of US$1.219 billion.
The local currency earlier fell as low as NT$33.27 on news that President Chen Shui-bian (
"If any irregular factors make the foreign exchange rate too volatile, the central bank will enter to adjust the rate, in a bid to maintain order in the foreign exchange market," the bank said in a statement yesterday evening.
The foreign exchange market will open as normal on Monday, the bank added.
Despite the incident, the foreign exchange market did not fluctuate greatly yesterday. But an analyst said that the assassination attempt tuned out to be a short-term shock to the foreign exchange market.
"The foreign exchange market is not affected by the president's shooting since supporters showed self-restraint and no irrational move was taken," said Renee Chan (詹茹心), deputy manager in the marketing department at HSBC Asset Management Ltd (匯豐中華證券).
But Chan warned that the market may be negatively affected if irrational moves were taken by supporters after today's election that scare away foreign investors.
The NT dollar market yesterday opened at NT$33.228, reaching a high of NT$33.16 and a low of NT$33.29 during the session. It has risen 2.1 percent this year against the greenback as the local stock market attracted huge capital from overseas investors.
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