■ MOF to control cash-cards
The Ministry of Finance yesterday announced a three-tier mechanism to regulate the bad-loan ratio on cash-advance cards, the ministry said in a statement.
Card issuers with a bad-loan ratio that exceeds 8 percent will be suspended from operating cash-advance card businesses, the statement said.
The government will take corrective action against card issuers with bad-loan ratio levels between 8 and 5 percent by requiring them to improve asset quality within three months, it added.
A warning will be given to card issuers with a bad-loan ratio between 3 and 5 percent, according to the statement.
The mehcanism will take effect in late August, the statement said.
■ China Steel may raise forecast
China Steel Corp (中鋼) may post a pretax profit this year of as much as NT$60 billion (US$1.8 billion), higher than the company's earlier forecast, a Chinese-language newspaper said, citing chairman Lin Wen-yuan (林文淵).
China Steel plans to discuss raising its full-year forecast at its board meeting on June 25, the paper said.
The company in December forecast a pretax profit of NT$42 billion and net income of NT$33 billion. That compares with a reported pretax profit of NT$45 billion and net income of NT$37 billion last year.
■ China Motor plans new minivan
China Motor Co (中華汽車), which makes Mitsubishi Motor Corp cars in this country, said its Chinese unit will start making minivans, boosting production to as many as 150,000 cars a year in the world's fastest-growing auto market.
Southeast Motor Co (東南汽車), a venture between China Motor and the government of Fujian Province, won government approval to start producing its Veryca model as early as August, China Motor spokesman Hsu Li-min (許利民) said.
The unit plans to make 3,000 Verycas a month, he said.
The Veryca will target China's small passenger and utility vehicles market, which had estimated sales of 1.14 million cars last year, he said.
■ Chunghwa beats forecasts
Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管) said pretax profit this year is likely to exceed its earlier NT$17.7 billion (US$524 million) forecast as demand for its products increase in the run-up to Christmas.
Demand in the second quarter was slow in a traditional weak sales season, Chunghwa Picture vice president Liu Chih-chun (劉治軍) said.
"Entering the high season beginning in August, demand for flat-panel displays will rise again," Liu said. "We can even challenge NT$20 billion in pretax profit this year."
■ Tourism down from 2002
The number of tourist arrivals in the first five months of the year totaled 1.13 million, down 7.19 percent from the 2002 level, said officials at the Tourism Bureau.
This year's figures were compared with the 2002 levels since the numbers for the same period last year were anomalous because of the impact of SARS, officials said.
The number of tourists from Japan, Hong Kong and Macau, and the US dropped in the first five months compared to 2002.
The fall in travel was largely due to fears of terrorist attacks, the re-appearance of SARS in March in China and outbreaks of bird flu across Asia early this year, as well as political uncertainties at home after the presidential election, officials said.
■ NT dollar weakens
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday turned weak against its US counterpart, declining NT$0.017 to close at NT$33.711 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$699 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