Trade-change timing uncertain
The Cabinet-level Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday said that the timing of when to widen the TAIEX's daily trading limit to 15 percent from the current 7 percent remains under evaluation, in a bid to downplay yesterday's report that the change will be carried out in October.
"We are not changing our plan," the commission's vice chairman Lu Daung-yen (呂東英) told a press conference yesterday, adding that they will not come out with the exact timing for the change until after the supportive measures are completed, which is expected to happen by October.
Lu made the remarks after Chinese-language reports yesterday cited Taiwan Stock Exchange chairman Wu Nai-jen (吳乃仁) as saying that the authorities would lift the daily trading ceiling to 15 percent in October, one month later than previously thought.
The supportive measures include resetting computer systems, which will require four to six months to finish, raising the collateral maintenance ratio for margin trading from 120 percent to 140 percent -- which the authorities previously have said is slated to take place in August -- and evaluating investors' acceptance of the change, Lu said.
Powerchip to expand factories
Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶半導體), Taiwan's largest memory chip supplier, said it plans to raise more than NT$30 billion (US$962 million) to fund expansion at its factories.
The company may sell 300 million shares to institutional investors and NT$10 billion in convertible bonds, Vice President Eric Tang (譚仲民) said in Hong Kong today. Powerchip also plans to obtain syndicated loans of between NT$10 billion and NT$15 billion in the third quarter, he said.
Powerchip will start construction of its third plant to produce 300mm silicon wafers by the end of this year, which will cost US$1.8 billion to build and equip, Tang said. At the same time the Hsinchu, Taiwan-based company will start building a fourth 300mm wafer facility, he said.
At the end of last year, Powerchip had a 5 percent share of the worldwide dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chip market, worth US$1.3 billion, and was the sixth-biggest supplier, ISuppli Corp said.
Powerchip's capital expenditure for this year would be NT$50 billion, Tang said. Capital spending in the first quarter was NT$14 billion.
Asustek seeks support for sale
Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦), the nation's largest motherboard maker, is seeking shareholders' approval to sell 350 million new shares overseas to raise funds. The company will submit the proposal at a shareholders' meeting tomorrow, deputy spokesman David Chang (張偉明) said today.
Similarly, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the nation's largest electronics company by sales, will ask stockholders to pre-approve a plan to sell as many as 300 million new shares overseas, the company said.
Asustek Computer may package new shares in the form of global depositary receipts for overseas investors, a Chinese-language newspaper reported today.
NT dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar closed near the strongest in more than four weeks on speculation foreign investors will keep putting money into local stocks.
The NT dollar gained NT$0.001 to close at NT$31.226 against its US counterpart yesterday on the Taipei foreign exchange market. The currency may strengthen to NT$31 this week, Kondou said.
Overseas fund managers bought a net US$99.7 million of the nation's stocks this week, adding to a net purchase of US$946.8 million last week, according to stock exchange data.
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