The housing market continues to improve, with the composite index for the sector reaching a new seven- quarter high, the Architecture and Building Research Institute said in a report yesterday.
The institute said the composite index was 13 points last quarter, up from 12 points for the first quarter, the highest since the fourth quarter of 2004.
"The index marked a third consecutive green light, showing the market is stable and safe as a whole," institute director-general Ho Ming-jing (
Property transactions and investment in the second quarter increased 1.66 percent and 0.93 percent, respectively, from the first quarter, but the number of applications for construction licenses fell 3.77 percent after dropping 8.09 percent in the first quarter, the report said. The leading index also rose 0.8 percent to 104.63 points in last quarter after sliding for two quarters, it said.
The institute conducted a survey on construction companies, real-estate brokers, financial institutions and industry-related companies, with 12 percent of the polled saying they were positive about their market outlook for the next quarter, while 33.14 percent said they believed the market would go down.
By region, property developers in the north of Taiwan are more optimistic than those in the center and south, showing stronger demand and more stable prices in the region, according to the report.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
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