Taiwan won't attempt to impose Thai-style currency controls and the nation's currency remains stable, Central Bank Governor Perng Fai-nan (
The local currency's exchange rate will be determined by supply and demand, Perng said in response to lawmakers' questions.
"Taiwan has embraced [currency] liberalization and there can be no turning back," Perng said.
The central bank's statistics show that as of Dec. 12, the NT dollar has appreciated by 1.11 percent against its US counterpart from a year earlier.
The NT dollar yesterday closed NT$0.045 lower at NT$32.61 against the US dollar on the Taipei Forex Inc.
Trading was limited to US$372 million from US$664 million on Friday, because financial markets in South Korea, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia were closed.
The NT dollar's weak performance yesterday was a result of market speculation that the central bank might attempt to manipulate the currency, traders said.
The local currency also weakened because the latest comments from Bank of Japan Governor Toshihiko Fukui offered few clues to the direction of Japanese interest rates, they added.
"It is necessary to adjust interest rate levels in line with a change in the economy and consumer prices," Fukui said yesterday.
"However, we don't have in mind any certain levels of policy interest rates or any timing for a change," he said.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained