■ Watchdog begins meetings
Financial Supervisory Commission Chairman Kong Law-sheng (龔照勝) led the commission's officials to meet Hua Nan Financial Holding Co (華南金控) Chairman Lin Ming-cheng (林明成) and top executives yesterday to get learn about the company's development strategy, which was part of the regulator's consolidation plan to halve the number of the nation's financial groups to seven by the year end. The commission is slated to hold the second meeting of this kind with Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控) next week. The financial watchdog expected to finish its meetings with all financial folding firms in the next two to three months. Hua Nan Financial made suggestions for the regulator's planned competitiveness measurement system and proposed to relax the firewall mechanism designed to restrict financial holding firms' internal exchanges of clients information and internal trading, the commission spokesman Lin Chung-cheng (林忠正) said, while adding that proper management was necessary. He declined to disclose meeting details, citing confidentiality.
■ MasterCard launches Web site
To promote correct debt management and consumption concepts, MasterCard International yesterday launched an interactive Chinese-language Web site to give consumers a thorough check-up of their financial conditions and help them deal with their debt issues. The organization is also scheduled to hold a series of forums on university campuses around the nation from this month to June, with entertainer Pink Yang (楊千霈) acting as the program's spokeswoman to share with students her experiences. Developed from the English-language Web site "Debt Know How" launched last year, the new site (www.mastercard.com.tw) is designed with simple assessment tools and quizzes for users to check their own debt warning signs and calculate debt-to-income ratios. A similar Web site has also been launched by Visa International at www.mymoneyskills.com.tw.
■ Agency completes evaluation
The Directorate General of Telecommunications (DGT) under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications is expected to issue its first license for IP phone operators in June after completing an evaluation on Internet communications surveillance, a local daily reported on Monday. The Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported that the government announced last November that fixed-network operators with a minimum of NT$500 million (US$15.5 million) in capital are eligible to apply for a license to provide IP phone services. Operators that pass the government's evaluation will be given a batch of 11-digit phone numbers starting with "070" for them to sell to IP phone users. Although the measure came into effect three months ago, investigative authorities have not formulated related packages that ensure Internet communications security, the DGT said. The lack of a sound package has hampered many operators' plans to enter the IP phone market, which is seeing rising numbers of Taiwanese users turning to the Internet for phone conversations, the report said. While Skype and Yahoo already offer phone services via the Internet in Taiwan, no phone numbers are provided to the subscribers, which limits the functions and services of IP phones.
■ NT dollar falls
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining NT$0.136 to close at NT$32.231. US$1.49 billion 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],”
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