FSC to keep fund going
In a bid to bail out failed financial institutions, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said Wednesday that the government's collection of financial business taxes will be prolonged until the end of 2010 to help top up the Financial Restructuring Fund. This will generate an estimated NT$125 billion over the next five to six years, for injection into the fund, Gary Tseng (曾國烈), head of the commission's banking bureau, said at a press briefing. The NT$140 billion-restructuring fund was established in June 2002 and has been used to bail out 46 problem banks. But the fund's capital had dwindled to NT$11 billion as of last October, Tseng said.
Bargain-hunting boosts TAIEX
Shares ended flat yesterday but rebounded from their worst low since January after suspected government fund buying and bargain hunting, dealers said. The TAIEX finished 0.70 points higher, or 0.01 percent, at 6,019.49 in dealings valued at NT$62.86 billion (US$2 billion). During trading, the bourse dropped to 5,970.20, its worst performance since it fell to 5,900.37 Jan. 31. But brisk buying in technology sector lifted the main index, dealers said.
NT dollar ends losing streak
The New Taiwan dollar gained, snapping an eight-day slide. The NT dollar advanced NT$0.021 to NT$31.369 against its US counterpart, after trading as low as NT$31.491, the weakest since Feb. 22, according to Taipei Forex Inc. The currency also rose after central bank Governor Perng Fai-nan (
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