■ CEPD rules out inflation worries
Despite soaring commodity prices, inflation will not be a problem in the short term, a spokesman for the Council for Economic Planning and Development said yesterday.
Citing the results of an assessment carried out by the council's Economic Research Department, the spokesman said that a 10 percent hike in steel prices will result in a 0.85 percent increase in commodity wholesale prices, particularly in the industrial sector. At the same time, a 10 percent price hike in petroleum-related products will lead to a 0.4 percent rise in consumer product prices, he added.
Although oil and steel prices have surged since the beginning of this year, he said that the issue will only have a limited impact on domestic commodity prices and he ruled out the possibility of inflation in the coming months.
■ Metal industry revenues rise
Fueled by soaring prices of steel goods at home and abroad, the output value of the nation's basic metal industry set a new quarterly high of NT$298.9 billion (US$9.05 billion) for the first three months of this year, according to a report released yesterday.
The figure represents an annual 20.7 percent growth rate and it will further pick up in the fourth quarter after hovering around the first quarter level in the second and third quarters, the Industrial Technology Information Service (ITIS) report said..
The overall production value of the basic metal industry totaled NT$1.075 trillion last year, marking an annual growth rate of 19.9 percent, according to the report. It forecasts that production value this year will increase by 18 percent to NT$1.264 trillion.
■ Mission to visit Saudi Arabia
A Taiwanese business and industrial mission is scheduled to visit Saudi Arabia to promote economic ties, the English-language Arab News reported yesterday.
The mission, to be comprised of executives from 43 manufacturing companies, Taiwan External Trade Development Council officials and business associations, will take part in the 2004 GITEX computer expo to be held in Riyadh starting tomorrow.
Saudi Arabia is the largest market for information-technology (IT) products in the Middle East, absorbing some US$4.6 billion-worth of IT products last year. That figure accounted for 40 percent of the entire IT market in that part of the world in 2002.
■ Display makers' profits to rise
The nation's five largest makers of flat-panel displays will quadruple their combined profit this year because of growing demand and falling production costs, a Chinese-language paper said yesterday.
AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子), Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管), HannStar Display Corp (瀚宇彩晶) and Quanta Display Inc (廣輝電子) will probably post NT$110 billion in net income this year compared with NT$25.3 billion last year, the paper said, citing analysts it did not identify.
■ Pou Chen buys Quanta shares
Pou Chen Corp (寶成) bought NT$811 million of Quanta Display Inc (廣輝電子) shares, paving way for an alliance between the two companies, a Chinese-language newspaper reported yesterday.
Pou Chen bought 33.8 million Quanta Display shares, or a 0.94 percent stake, at an average price of NT$24 each, the report said. That's about 18 percent less than the stock's last trading price on Thursday of NT$29.2.
■ New Taiwan dollar rises
The NT dollar yesterday turned strong against its US counterpart, advancing NT$0.040 to close at NT$32.975 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. For the week, the NT dollar weakened 0.1 percent against the greenback. Turnover was US$660 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],”
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