China Steel Corp (
China Steel and the China Development Industrial Bank (
"We're raising funds locally and will expand there," Chen said in a telephone interview. "We think it's a good time to list it because the environment is quite good."
China Steel owns 90 percent of Ornasteel Holdings, and China Development Industrial Bank, the nation's largest venture capital company, the remainder, according to Chen, who declined to give an estimate of how much the share sale will raise.
Oransteel Holdings, which controls Malaysia-based steelmakers Group Steel Enterprise Corp and Ornasteel Enterprise Corp, will be the first overseas subsidiary of China Steel to list, Chen said.
Kaohsiung-based China Steel has raised product prices every quarter since mid-2002 as strong demand from China drove up prices of the metal.
The company in June raised its profit forecast for the year by two-fifths from a December estimate to NT$46.4 billion (US$1.4 billion). It posted a profit of NT$37 billion last year.
China Steel saw sales rise 37.3 percent to NT$15.36 billion last month from a year earlier, according to a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange today.
China Steel shares ended 0.3 percent lower at NT$32.6 on the stock exchange, despite Merrill Lynch & Co raising its net profit forecast for the company this year by 3.2 percent to NT$48.97 billion (US$1.44 billion) on expectations demand for steel will continue to be strong.
The stock has gained 20 percent this year.
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