■ WTO talks encouraged
Business leaders attending the conference of the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) in Taipei yesterday voiced deep concern about the state of the WTO's Doha development agenda negotiations. They urged WTO members to resume the talks as soon as possible, the ABAC said in a statement.
ABAC chairman Hernan Somerville said that there was concern in business circles because there had been no clear signals from governments that the WTO negotiations would be resumed in the near future.
"This lack of progress jeopardizes prospects for sustained economic growth and development throughout the APEC region," Somerville said in the statement.
The four-day ABAC conference concluded yesterday, with Somerville highlighting the need to enhance coherence and consistency between global, regional and bilateral trade policy.
He said ABAC will deliver a range of trade recommendations to the meeting of APEC trade ministers in Chile in early June.
■ CAL receives new freighters
China Airlines (華航) took delivery of two additional freight planes this week to meet the strong global demand for air cargo transportation, the nation's largest international carrier said in a statement yesterday.
One of the new jets is a self-owned Boeing 747-400F and the other is an MD-11F with a one-year "wet lease" term from World Airways, which means the plane is leased together with a crew.
The two new jets will enable the airline to add cargo flights to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas and Seattle in the US, the statement said.
■ LG bidders picked
Taiwan's Yuanta Core Pacific Securities (元大京華證券) and South Korea's second-largest banking firm, Woori Financial Group, were yesterday picked as preferred bidders for LG Investment and Securities, officials said.
Korea Development Bank (KDB), a key LG creditor in charge of the sale, said it would select a final winning bidder between Woori and Yuanta by next month.
Five weeks of negotiations, including a three-week due diligence process, would follow before a final contract is signed next month, KDB said.
About 10 foreign and domestic firms were reported to have been interested in the 21.2 percent stake in LG Investment and Securities.
KDB officials said Woori and Yuanta were almost equal in terms of their bids.
■ Removal of tariffs proposed
The Ministry of Economic Affairs on Thursday decided to suggest that the Ministry of Finance remove anti-dumping tariffs on imports of some steel goods from three countries, on the grounds that they do not pose a threat to the domestic steel industry.
The International Trade Commission under the Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded an investigation showing that imports of H-beam girders from Poland, Russia and South Korea would cause no more damage to domestically produced goods if the anti-dumping tariffs are removed.
Citing the results of the investigation, the official reported that domestic products now enjoy a bigger market share in Taiwan and that local companies are making greater profits.
The commission will pass on the results of the probe to the Ministry of Finance, which make a final decision within 10 days of receiving the report.
■ NT dollar dragged down
In line with a weak Japanese yen, the NT dollar yesterday traded lower against its US counterpart, falling NT$0.042 to close at NT$33.663 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$1.068 billion.
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