Securities bill passes reading
The Finance Committee at the Legislative Yuan yesterday passed the first reading of the amendments to the Securities and Exchange Law (證券交易法), stipulating that listed companies shall have at least either two seats or no less than one-fifth of total seats of independent board directors in an attempt to strengthen corporate governance.
To safeguard independence, independent board directors and their relatives are banned from serving as board directors, superintendents and major shareholders of the same firms publicly traded in the local bourse, the Financial Supervisory Commission said.
The regulation is set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2007 and will be applied to priority listed companies, including financial holding firms, financial institutions of capitalization exceeding NT$10 billion and manufacturing companies having capitalization of over NT$5 billion, the commission said.
The approved amendments also obligate the public certified accountants to bear compensation liability to investors along with companies for their endorsement of the falsified financial books, unless they can prove they have no knowledge of the fraud and well fulfill their verification duties.
CAL chair to head China Steel
Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday made the announcement that China Airlines (華航) chairman Chiang Yao-chung (江耀宗) will take over the chairmanship of the China Steel Corp (中鋼) after former chairman Lin Wen-yuan (林文淵) stepped down from the post.
Before serving as the China Airlines chairman, Chiang served as the bureau chief of the Department of Rapid Transit Systems for the Taipei City Government.
Lin then resigned from the chairmanship of China Steel after being grilled by lawmakers for his annual stock bonus from the company, which was estimated to be NT$44 million (US$1.31 million).
Lin was demanded to give up the bonus and return it to the national treasury.
Lin donated his bonus to the charity and left the office on Oct. 15.
Uni-President forges venture
Uni-President Group (統一集團), Taiwan's leading food company, has forged a 10 million yuan (US$1.25 million) joint venture with a Shanghai firm to commodity trade in China, a group official said yesterday.
Nanlien International Corp (南聯國貿), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Uni-President Group, holds a 50 percent stake in the joint venture, Shanghai E and P Trading Co, which started operations last month, the official said.
Shanghai Sugar Cigarette and Wine (Group) Co (上海煙糖集團) took the other half, he said.
"Shanghai YanTang shares 15 percent of the mainland sugar market," he said.
The parters were also to cooperate in commodity trading and logistics distribution in China, he added.
The joint venture would also eye markets in the 10-nation block of countries in ASEAN in the future, he added.
Sales for the new firm were expected to reach 400 million yuan in the first year and rise to one billion yuan annually in three years, the official said.
NT dollar declines
The New Taiwan dollar declined against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, losing NT$0.033 to close at NT$33.690.
A total of US$612 million changed hands during the day's trading.
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