Big bond sale on the way
The central government is planning to sell NT$110 billion (US$3.3 billion) in bonds in the first quarter next year to help finance spending.
The planned amount is 27 percent lower than the NT$150 billion the government auctioned in the first quarter of this year, according to a Ministry of Finance statement yesterday.
The ministry's Department of National Treasury is planning to auction NT$40 billion in five-year bonds on Jan. 3, NT$30 billion in 20-year bonds on Feb. 21 and then NT$40 billion in 10-year bonds on March 28, the statement added.
Chanel in a hangar
China Airlines Ltd (華航), the nation's largest carrier, and Chanel, a world famous haute-couture brand, will jointly hold a fashion show for Chanel's 2006 spring-summer collection next month, a China Airlines spokesman said yesterday.
The show will be held on Jan. 13 at the air carrier's maintenance plant, and is especially designed to attract customers to Taiwan, Hong Kong and China.
The event is also expected to attract a large number of fashion celebrities from around the world, the spokesman said.
Most firms hold down pay
More than 73 percent of local companies will maintain salaries for workers at current levels, while only 12 percent said that they would consider raising starting salaries for new workers, according to the results of a recent survey by the 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行).
Some 55 percent of companies surveyed think business conditions next year will be about the same as this year.
Another 16 percent are pessimistic about the economic situation, the survey showed.
About 34 percent of companies said they have plans to recruit new blood next year, with those in the media and publishing sectors and those in the information and daily consumer products industries were displaying greater demand.
Job opportunities in the manufacturing, real estate and pharmaceutical and biotech sectors have increased over the past year.
Employment in the insurance and securities sectors, however, has fallen slightly, according to the results of the survey.
`Solar' chips could benefit all
If the chipmaking industry is able to integrate solar energy to produce highly efficient solar cells, then this would assist the nation in reducing its dependence on imported energy, Chang Chien-yi (張建一), a departmental director at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, said yesterday.
Chang said the production process involved in developing low-cost solar cells has many features in common with semiconductor production.
Some solar cell manufacturers are studying how to use new chips and related technology to lower production costs, he said.
If the chipmaking industry can work well with the "green" energy sector, it would not only open up a new horizon for the industry but also create great benefits for the nation, which is 99 percent reliant on imported crude oil, he said.
NT dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar rose yesterday on year-end demand from exporters and continued capital inflows, dealers said.
But there was little impact from the central bank's widely expected rate hike, they said.
A firmer Japanese yen also buoyed the NT dollar, which closed NT$0.083 higher at NT$33.178 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$745 million.
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