China investment hits high
Taiwan's investment in China in the first 10 months of this year amounted to US$7.66 billion, setting a new high, according to the latest tallies released by the Investment Commission under the Ministry of Economic Affairs on Tuesday.
The figure represents an increase of 30.11 percent over the same period last year, and surpasses the US$7.64 billion invested in China for the entire last year.
Direct overseas Chinese and foreign investments in Taiwan in the first 10 months totaled US$12.93 billion, up 15.17 percent from the same period last year.
On outbound investment, Taiwan businesses reported investments of US$4.68 billion in the Jan. to Oct. period, an increase of 63.82 percent over the same period last year.
iPhone to come unattached
German telecommunications operator Deutsche Telekom said yesterday following a court ruling that it would sell Apple's mobile iPhone without forcing customers to subscribe to a mobile telephone service.
But Deutsche Telekom will charge 999 euros (US$1,480) for the hot-selling multimedia item instead of the 399 euros charged when buyers also take a Deutsche Telekom subscription, a statement said.
The German telecoms operator will offer to unblock iPHones that have already been bought with a subscription, it added, and the conditions would apply "until the end of the judicial procedure" currently in progress.
The announcement came after a court in northern Hamburg granted an injunction to British telecom operator Vodafone, which had challenged an exclusive distribution agreement between Apple and Deutsche Telekom's mobile unit T-Mobile.
German press reports had said that T-Mobile agreed to pay Apple between 10 and 30 percent of the operator's iPhone sales in order to seal the German distribution deal.
Exploration rights granted
Two Chinese mining companies have won the right to explore an Afghan copper mine, which is possibly the world's largest, the commerce ministry said yesterday.
China Metallurgical Group Corp (MCC, 中國冶金科工集團), a state-owned metal producer and contractor, and Jiangxi Copper Co (江西銅業) will jointly develop the Aynak mine east of Kabul, said a statement on the ministry's Web site.
The deposit of copper in the mine was estimated at 11.3 million tonnes, the statement said.
MCC will invest about US$3 billion in the project, which includes building a power station to run power the mine, the Financial Times report has reported.
"This is the biggest investment in Afghanistan's history and 10,000 people will be employed to work there," the London-based newspaper quoted Afghan mines minister Ibrahim Adel as saying.
Japan's trade surplus rises
Japan's trade surplus rose 66.1 percent in October from a year ago as exports recorded an all-time high value in yen, the Finance Ministry said yesterday.
The surplus grew to ?1.019 trillion (US$9.27 billion), marking the third consecutive monthly increase, the ministry said.
Exports remained robust during the period despite a stronger yen, which makes Japanese products more expensive abroad.
Overall exports gained 13.9 percent to a record ?7.516 trillion (US$68.43 billion) despite a decline in exports to the US.
Shipments to China and other Asian nations rose to records driven by automobiles, semiconductors and telecommunication devices.
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