CAL expects bigger revenues
China Airlines (CAL, 華航) expects its revenues to surpass NT$100 billion (US$3.09 billion) next year, supported by new routes and services, the company said yesterday.
For this year, CAL is expected to post NT$93.5 billion in revenue and NT$4.05 billion in pretax profit, company president Philip Wei (魏幸雄) said in a statement.
The carrier plans to expand its current fleet of 63 to 67 aircraft by the end of next year, he added.
Interest-rate rumor denied
The central bank said it will take "appropriate financial adjustment measures" to ensure economic stability, denying a report that Deputy Governor Hsu Yi-hsiung (徐義雄) said it planned to keep key interest rates unchanged this month because consumer prices are stable.
The bank will "watch closely economic and financial situations at home and abroad at all times and will take necessary moves after careful study and discussion," the central bank said in a statement, citing Hsu.
A Chinese-language business daily reported yesterday that the country does not have inflationary pressure and the central bank's neutral monetary policy will probably continue. The central bank said the report wasn't true.
NT makes significant gain
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday rose NT$0.107 to close at NT$32.340 against its US counterpart, its biggest gain since Dec. 6, on the Taipei foreign exchange market. The local unit has gained about 5 percent against the greenback this year.
Turnover was US$575 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