■ Forex reserves up last month
The nation's foreign currency reserves rose to US$260.9 billion last month, ranking third after China and Japan, the central bank said yesterday.
In February, the nation's foreign currency reserves totaled US$260.94 billion, up US$1.9 billion from April.
The central bank attributed the rise in foreign currency reserves to the increase in local investors' foreign assets holdings and major currencies' appreciation against the US dollar.
■ DigiMedia opens new plant
DigiMedia Technology Co (駿林科技), a subsidiary of local home electronics maker Kolin Inc (歌林企業), inaugurated its new plant in Tainan yesterday.
The plant is expected to produce 600,000 liquid-crystal-display (LCD) TVs and generate NT$10 billion (US$312 million) in sales for the company this year.
DigiMedia plans to target the North American market and start shipping its 47-inch LCD TVs to the region this month, Liu Chi-lieh (劉啟烈), president of Kolin, said at the inauguration.
The company is hoping to boost its market share, which is currently above 6 percent, he added.
DigiMedia also plans to list on the US stock market, Liu said, without giving a timetable.
■ NT dollar strengthens
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.031 to close at NT$32.049.
A total of US$833 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],”
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