■ CPC to raise gas prices
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) announced yesterday that it would raise wholesale gasoline and diesel prices by NT$0.8 per liter as of this morning.
The adjusted retail price for 98-octane unleaded gasoline is NT$28.8 (US$0.87), while 95-octane gasoline will cost NT$27.3, 92-octane gasoline will cost NT$26.6 and top-grade diesel oil will be NT$23.5 per liter, the company said in a statement.
Smaller rival Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said it would lower its prices to match CPC Taiwan's, effective 2am today.
■ Government to keep shares
The government yesterday said it determined to maintain its shareholding in China Development Financial Holding Co (中華開發金控) as none of its private shareholders reported shareholding of over 15 percent as of 6pm yesterday, the deadline given by the government.
Minister of Finance Ho Chih-chin (何志欽) said in September that if the major private shareholder the Chinatrust Group (中信集團) upheld its promise to increase its stake in China Development to 15 percent four months before its next board meeting and has a clean record of corporate governance, the government would gradually release its shares in the firm.
■ Unemployment drops
Taiwan's unemployment rate fell to 3.79 percent last month from 3.81 percent in December on a fall in first-time job seekers, the statistics bureau said yesterday.
The January unemployment figure was down from 3.80 percent a year earlier, the bureau 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],”
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