■ Trade
Frogs' legs to hop into EU
Gourmets will be able to sample additional supplies of frogs' legs and snails when it becomes easier to import the typical French delicacies into the EU next year. New EU food hygiene rules will allow non-EU countries exporting frog's legs to fill out one common health certificate to sell produce to the 25-nation bloc. Demand outstrips supply in Europe so frogs' legs are imported from Albania, Egypt and Indonesia. "It will be easier for customs," a senior European Commission official told a briefing on Friday, adding that food safety would also be improved under the new rules. Frogs' legs can contain salmonella, a potentially fatal disease in humans. Snail imports into the EU will also be covered by the new rules which come into force on Jan. 1 next year.
■ Macroeconomics
Local salaries weaken
Taiwanese workers' salaries posted negative growth of 0.9 percent in real terms for the first seven months of this year, the largest decline of its kind in the country's history, according to government statistics. Taiwanese employees' monthly salaries averaged NT$35,517 (US$1,077) during the January-July period, for a year-on-year increase of 0.96 percent, but the consumer price index rose by 1.92 percent during the same period, resulting in negative growth of 0.9 percent in worker salaries in real terms -- the second such decline on record, tallies compiled by the Cabinet-level Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics show. Taiwanese workers in the industrial and service sectors worked an average of 181.7 hours in July, down by 5.6 hours from June and down by 8.4 hours from the year-earlier level.
■ Banking
Chang Hwa sale approved
Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化銀行) said its shareholders yesterday approved a plan to sell 1.4 billion new preferred shares to rival Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控), paving the way for a combination of the two lenders. The approval will give Taishin Financial, owner of the nation's second-largest credit-card issuer, a 22 percent stake in Chang Hwa, Taiwan's sixth-largest bank by assets, Chang Hwa said in a statement late Friday. Taishin Financial on July 22 won a bid and agreed to pay NT$36.6 billion (US$1.1 billion) for the stake and management control of Chang Hwa. A combination of the two banks will create the nation's second-largest banking group in terms of assets. The government, which owns an 18 percent stake in Chang Hwa, has said it favors selling shares it owns in Chang Hwa to the winning bidder, giving Taishin a 40 percent stake.
■ Telecoms
Executive accused of fraud
A budding entrepreneur once hailed as the poster boy among Singapore's financial circles has been charged with padding repair bills to mobile phone-maker Nokia, a report said yesterday. Businessman Victor Tan, 34, founder of mobile phone service firm Accord Customer Care Solutions (ACCS), faces 43 counts of conspiring to prepare "fictitious warranty repair claims of Nokia mobile telephones," the Straits Times said. The charges center on monthly bills totalling some S$4.3 million (US$2.56 million) that were sent to Finnish-based Nokia last year for repairs of phones under warranty. Many of the repairs were allegedly never carried out. Similar charges were levelled against 11 other members of his firm on Friday.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”