■ Good growth spurs investment
Private investment in major projects for next year is expected to exceed NT$1 trillion (US$30.7 billion) on the back of continuing growth in the electronics and information sector, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
Major investment projects, referring to those valued at NT$100 million or more, amounted to NT$915.8 billion in the first 11 months of this year, compared with NT$890 billion for all of last year, the ministry said.
"Strong demand for flat-panel displays worldwide is encouraging thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal-display makers to invest more. The electronic and information sector is expected to pour an extra NT$550 billion into investments next year," a ministry official said.
Also for next year, the metal and machinery sector is expected to attract NT$241 billion in new investments and the chemical industry NT$133 billion, the ministry said.
It said NT$39 billion is expected for new projects in technology services and NT$33 billion for the wholesale and logistics sector.
■ EnTie ratings fall
Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評) yesterday lowered its long-term credit rating for EnTie Commercial Bank (安泰銀行) to "twBBB+" from "twA-." The outlook on the long-term rating was revised to stable from negative.
The rating revision reflects EnTie's weakened financial profile, particularly its capitalization, mainly arising from sizeable credit costs as it lacks adequate underwriting controls when dealing with the high-risk balance transfer business, the local arm of Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said.
The ratings also factor in the bank's average pre-provision profitability and efforts to clean up impaired assets.
Despite a cash injection of NT$2.9 billion (US$89 million) in March this year, EnTie is unlikely to restore its capitalization unless it undertakes additional fund raising, Taiwan Ratings said.
■ Online shopping trumps TV
Taiwanese consumers tend to spend more on online shopping than on TV shopping, according to the results of a survey released yesterday by National Central University's Research Center for Taiwan Economic Development.
The survey showed that 40.8 percent of consumers made purchases through TV shopping networks over the past six months, with 57.3 percent spending between NT$1,000 and NT$3,000 on each purchase.
The most popular product on TV shopping networks is household items, followed by computers and travel packages, it said.
Similar to the TV shopping trend, household products, computers and travel packages are the three most popular products among online shoppers.
■ Firms want more foreigners
Factories in the nation's economic processing zones urged the government yesterday to import more foreign laborers to help them overcome a growing shortage of manpower as the economy recovers.
A company owner based in the Nantze Export Processing Zone said that certain sectors, particularly labor-intensive garment and electronics factories, desperately need more workers to maintain normal operations, and they hoped the government would allow more foreign laborers to work there.
Government statistics show that more than 70,000 workers are employed by factories in economic processing zones across the country, some 7,000 of whom are foreign nationals.
■ NT dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar traded higher against its US counterpart yesterday, advancing NT$0.064 to close at NT$32.596 on the Taipei Forex Inc.
Turnover was US$958 million.
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