■ Economy
Inflation hits three-year low
Taiwan's inflation rate registered at 0.6 percent for last year, marking the lowest level over the past three years, according to tallies released on Friday by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS). The officials attributed the low inflation rate to the drop in food prices, thanks largely to stable vegetable and fruit supply owing to good weather. While vegetable prices declined 8.95 percent compared with 2005 -- when vegetable supply was affected by a string of typhoons, fruit prices only increased slightly by 1.04 percent, the officials said. They predicted that the consumer price index (CPI) will rise 1.5 percent for this year owing to soaring international raw material prices.
■ Research
Intel leaving S Korean center
Intel Corp has decided to close its only research and development center in South Korea as part of a company restructuring, officials said on Friday. Intel's move cuts the number of foreign R&D centers in South Korea to 14, a spokesman at the Information and Communication Ministry said on condition of anonymity, citing ministry policy. The South Korean government jointly operates the center, located in Bundang, near Seoul, with Intel, the spokesman said, adding that despite Intel's decision, the government will continue its research.
■ Corruption
Seoul watchdog arrested
A top official from South Korea's financial watchdog has been arrested on corruption charges, news reports said yesterday. Kim Jung-hoe, vice chief of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), was arrested late on Friday, accused of accepting a payment in return for trying to influence a takeover deal, several television and newspaper reports said. He is accused of receiving a total of 200 million won (US$214,000) on several occasions from businessman Kim Heung-ju, who was attempting to take over a mutual savings bank in 2001.
■ Automakers
Mercedes hits sales record
DaimlerChrysler AG said on Friday that unit sales at its Mercedes division rose 3 percent to a record last year, powered by a strong rise in demand for its luxury Mercedes-Benz models. The Mercedes Car Group, which also includes the Bentley and Smart brands, sold 1.26 million cars, up from 1.22 million in 2005. Daimler-Benz alone delivered 1.15 million vehicles last year, up 7 percent from 1.08 million last year. Daimler-Benz lifted sales in all regions, including an 11 percent improvement to 248,100 units in the US. Growth was 33 percent in China, and 11 percent in Asia as a whole, the parent company said. The brand sold 685,200 cars in its core markets of Western Europe. In contrast, sales of the compact Smart car dropped nearly 22 percent to 112,100 last year.
■ Breweries
Top US brewer raises sales
The largest US brewery sold more beer than ever last year. Anheuser-Busch Cos said on Friday that US shipments to wholesalers rose 1.2 percent to 102.3 million barrels last year, up from 101.1 million in 2005. August Busch IV, president and chief executive officer of the St. Louis-based brewery, said the increase was the result of efforts to grow core brands like Budweiser, the best-selling full-calorie beer, and Bud Light, the best-selling light beer. He also cited the addition of the Rolling Rock brands and the imports Grolsch and Tiger.
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
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts