Petroleum University' opens
A training program described as a "Petroleum University" affiliated to the Chinese Petroleum Corp (CPC, 中油) opened in Chiayi yesterday.
CPC Chairman Kuo Chin-tsai (郭進財) said the program is aimed at cultivating its personnel's professional skills and welcome the era of globalization.
The program focuses on four elements of the petroleum industry: petroleum refining, oil extraction, petroleum marketing and petroleum engineering. CPC executives and academic experts will offer hands-on training relating to the petroleum industry, according to CPC president Chen Bao-lang (陳寶郎), who doubles as head of the program.
Current-account surplus shrinks
Taiwan's current-account surplus, the broadest measure of the flow of goods and services, narrowed in the fourth quarter to US$2.17 billion from a record US$8.04 billion a year earlier, the central bank said in a statement.
The financial account, which measures investment flows, had an outflow of US$1.97 billion, shrinking from a revised outflow of US$6.35 billion in the previous quarter, it said. Direct investment showed a net outflow of US$1.66 billion. Portfolio investment had a net inflow of US$1.92 billion in the fourth quarter, the report said.
Chunghwa Picture to expand
Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管) has hired four banks to arrange a US$200 million loan to expand production, the International Financing Review reported, without citing a source.
Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行), Chiao Tung Bank (交通銀行), Citigroup Inc and Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫) were hired to arrange the five-year loan in US dollars and New Taiwan dollars, the report said.
The four banks will invite other banks to join the US dollar part of the loan this week, which is likely to carry an interest rate 85 basis points more than the London interbank offered rate, the same rate as a five-year US$150 million loan the company signed last year, the report said.
UMC tackles auto electronics
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) is entering the auto-electronics industry by investing in Bcom Electronics Inc (公信電子), a Chinese-language business daily reported, without citing a source.
UMC will own more than half of Bcom Electronics, the Taipei-based newspaper said. The report didn't say how much the investment is worth. UMC vice chairman John Hsuan (宣明智) may become chairman of Bcom after Bcom's shareholders meet this month, the newspaper said.
Japan leads mobile Web use
A recent global survey shows that Taiwan's mobile Internet usage rate reached 43 percent last year, lagging behind Japan's 64 percent, South Korea's 51 percent and Hong Kong's 55 percent.
The "Worldwide Mobile Internet Survey" was conducted by the authoritative Taiwanese Web site Focus on Internet News and Data (www.find.org.tw), along with similar facilities in other countries and areas including Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, the US, Finland and Greece in October and November last year.
According to survey results, Taiwanese users spent an average of 21.3 minutes on mobile Internet services in the most recent month that the poll was carried out, compared with 22.1 minutes in South Korea, 29.1 minutes in Hong Kong and 33.5 minutes in Japan.
In terms of the monthly amount of money that online users paid for their mobile Internet services last year, Taiwan also saw the smallest average figure of NT$168.6 (US$5.36) among its neighbors, while Japanese users spent NT$671.9 on average, followed by NT$301.6 in South Korea and NT$204.1 in Hong Kong.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained