■ EVA opens cargo center in HK
EVA Airways (長榮航空), one of Taiwan's leading carriers, said yesterday it has opened a cargo coordination center in Hong Kong, eyeing the booming business in southern China. "The center serves as a bridge between southern China and Taiwan or other destinations, coordinating EVA Air's cargo services via Hong Kong or Macau," an EVA Air spokeswoman said. In the past, such coordination task was done by the company's headquarters in Taiwan. "The presence of the Hong Kong center is expected to streamline the company's operations by taking advantage of the geographical proximity with southern China," the spokeswoman said. Last year, cargo services between Taiwan and Hong Kong and between Taiwan and Macau accounted for about one-third of EVA Air's cargo revenue, she said.
■ BNP to raise index target
BNP Paribas Securities (Taiwan) Co announced yesterday that it will raise its index target for the local bourse to 10,000 points by the end of next year, citing a greater probability of the normalization of cross-strait relations and increasing participation by retail investors in the stock market. The French brokerage in January predicted that the TAIEX would peak at 7,800 points this year and may further rise to 9,000 points on any positive developments in cross-strait relations.
■ Su announces conference
A sustainable economic development conference will be held on June 18 and 19, hosted by Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), Vice Premier Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) announced yesterday. Some 150 people will be invited to attend, Council for Economic Planning and Development Chairman Hu Sheng-cheng (胡勝正) said after an organizing committee meeting. He also said that the conclusions reached at the conference will be implemented by the government, although the conference will not be seen as "part of the establishment." The conference will have five panels dealing with social security, industrial competitiveness, finance and economics, global and cross-Taiwan Strait issues, and government efficiency.
■ TAITRONICS going to Thailand
This year's TAITRONICS show will open on July 27 for four days in Bangkok, Thailand -- the first time it has been held in a foreign country, according to a press release issued on Sunday by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會). TAITRONICS, a show held annually by TAITRA for the past 33 years, is a major showcase for local products related to electronics, computers, audio-video and the Internet. A TAITRA official said the total value of Taiwan's high-tech exports to Thailand has increased by 30 percent annually in recent years. For that reason, holding TAITRONICS in Bangkok will bring Taiwanese products close to potential buyers, he noted. The official said besides buyers in Thailand, the show also expects retailers from Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong and China to attend. According to TAITRA, 155 companies have registered for nearly 300 stands and there will also be two theme halls of "automobile electronics" and "telecom electronics" at the Bangkok show.
■ NT dollar falls
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, decreasing NT$0.250 to close at NT$31.648. A total of US$1.48 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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts