Share prices closed 0.40 percent lower yesterday after Taiwan severed diplomatic relations with Chad as that country decided to switch diplomatic ties to China, dealers said.
Caution ahead of the US Federal Reserve's decision later this week on interest rates also dampened buying sentiment, they said.
The tourism sector was most affected by the news about Chad's move, triggering concerns over its impact on any initiative to relax cross-strait economic and business relations, dealers added.
The weighted index closed down 26 points at 6,416.61, off a low of 6,405.09 and a high of 6,450.06, on turnover of NT$56.12 billion (US$1.71 billion).
"These leads were not much of a surprise but investors still responded negatively, given the fact that sentiment was already cautious due to economic and industrial concerns," First Taisec Securities Inc (
The severance of Taiwan-Chad did not really jolt the market, but it triggered concerns that developments such as this, coming at a time when investors had been eagerly anticipating news of a relaxation of the policy towards China, would, instead, lead to a turn for the worse rather than better relations with Beijing.
It gives no reason for investors to return to the market, but drives them further into the sidelines where they had opted to stay to wait for an easing in oil prices and the Middle East conflict, Hsu said.
Industries such as the auto sector, which had entered a sluggish season, took a hit from lingering concerns over the impact of inflation on consumption going forward, he added.
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