■ Tax breaks for storm victims
The Ministry of Finance yesterday announced measures for typhoon-stricken taxpayers to receive tax breaks. In a written statement, the ministry said that victims suffering from Tropical Storm Mindulle will be entitled to deductions from various taxes including income taxes, business taxes, commodity tax, house tax and land tax. To get the tax breaks, typhoon victims should submit their applications within 30 days attached with estimates of the damage. If houses were 30 percent to 50 percent damaged will have half the house tax waived while a tax exemption will be granted to houses that were more than 50 percent destroyed, the ministry said. For land made unusable by storm damage, land tax will also be waived, according to the statement.
■ Pact with Malaysia signed
Taiwan and Malaysia signed a protocol on the temporary admission of goods yesterday, with both sides agreeing to operate under the ATA system as soon as possible. Under the ATA system, the transit and temporary import of three categories of goods will be exempt from customs duty and import surcharges -- goods intended for demonstration or use at commercial exhibitions, shows and trade fairs, and similar events; commercial samples; and equipment for the performance of a person's occupation.
■ Reserves reach US$230 billion
Foreign reserves, the third highest in the world, rose for the 36th month to a record US$230.09 billion in June, the central bank said. The reserves, which rank behind those of Japan and China, rose US$1.09 billion from US$229 billion in May, and up US$23.46 billion from the end of last year, the central bank said in a statement. The increase mainly reflects returns from foreign exchange reserve management, it said.
■ New Internet tool unveiled
The nation's largest Internet portal Yahoo-Kimo Inc (雅虎奇摩) yesterday unveiled its search tool called "desk bar," which allows users to search the Internet under the Windows Operating System without opening the Internet browser. Anita Huang (黃蕙雯), marketing manager of Yahoo-Kimo, said the desk bar simplifies and speeds up searching. The company provided a test version of the software three weeks ago, and downloads have exceeded 1.5 million during the period, Huang said.
■ 3M, Central Glass to invest
3M Co of the US and Japan's Central Glass Co are among the companies that may invest here as part of the government's efforts to attract NT$3 billion (US$89 million) of overseas investment in the electronic-components industry, a Chinese-language newspaper reported, citing unidentified sources at the Ministry of Economic Affairs. 3M will invest in a plant in the south to make glass used in liquid crystal displays, the newspaper reported. Central Glass Co and Kanto Denka Kogyo Co both plan to produce NF3, a gas used to clean liquid crystal displays during production, it said.
■ NT dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded higher against its US counterpart, advancing NT$0.014 to close at NT$33.710 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$377.5 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
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts