Taiwan will retain its "advanced emerging" status in the Financial Times Stock Exchange Group's (FTSE) latest annual review because it fell short of the requirements for "developed" status.
FTSE Group, which classifies markets into three categories -- developed, advanced emerging and secondary emerging -- has included Taiwan into its watch list for review since 2004.
But the country saw its hopes dashed this time because of deficiencies in terms of the ease, cost and security of investments made by international investors.
"Taiwan will continue to be assessed for promotion from advanced emerging to developed status," FTSE said yesterday.
"Whilst FTSE and investors are pleased to recognize that the exchange and regulator have made significant improvements, market access remains restricted to international investors in four critical areas," it said.
FTSE said Taiwan needs to have a free and well developed foreign exchange market and must establish a liquid stock lending market.
It also said payment delivery for transferring securities between accounts and off-exchange transactions should be free of charge.
"This is a bit disappointing, but its impact on local stocks is rather limited as investors had no advance expectations for the change," Alex Huang (黃國偉), vice assistant president at Mega Securities Corp (兆豐證券), said in a telephone interview yesterday.
"The investors' focus is on the central bank's possible monetary policy move and on local companies' earnings reports," he said.
The TAIEX closed up 56.65 points, or 0.63 percent, at 8,983.03 yesterday.
It climbed higher at the opening, boosted by a rally in global equities following the US Federal Reserve's decision to cut interest rates on Tuesday.
But shares edged down gradually from late morning due to profit-taking, as investors adjusted their positions ahead of next week's holidays, Huang said.
Financial markets will be closed on Monday and Tuesday for the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Huang said an upgrading, however, was needed because in the long-term view this would bring a sizable investment from European investors.
An amount between US$2 trillion to US$2.5 trillion of funds track FTSE Indexes. Of this amount, approximately 95 percent is linked to developed markets, Huang said.
South Korea's "advanced emerging" status remains unchanged as well, FTSE said.
"Markets on the watch list have made very significant changes to their regulations and investment procedures and systems to assist international investors to invest in their markets and are to be congratulated on the progress made," FTSE chief executive Mark Makepeace said.
"I hope that these markets will remain engaged in this process and that further markets that are close to achieving Developed status achieve this goal at the next annual review in September 2008," he said.
China's A-share remains on the watch list for possible inclusion in the FTSE Global Equity Index Series, it 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