Political fears limit shares
Share prices closed 0.20 percent higher yesterday as late selling mostly offset early advances triggered by Wall Street's overnight gains, dealers said.
Early strength in the market was undercut by domestic political concerns that prompted some investors to reduce their holdings late in the session, they said.
The TAIEX finished up 17.46 points at 8,694.41, on turnover of NT$127.81 billion (US$3.96 billion).
Decliners outnumbered advancers 1,267 to 762, with 445 stocks unchanged.
On the foreign exchange market, the New Taiwan dollar ended the day's trading at NT$32.309 over the US dollar, up NT$0.002 from the previous close.
Corning to boost spending
Corning Inc, the biggest maker of glass for liquid-crystal displays, plans to raise capital spending next year to between US$1.5 billion and US$1.7 billion as it boosts production of screens for large flat-screen TVs.
Corning's display unit alone will spend US$800 million to US$1 billion next year, the company said yesterday in a statement. That includes US$400 million on a plant in Japan for so-called Gen 10 manufacturing, which produces panels for large-screen TVs.
The new factory in Japan will make large liquid-crystal display panels for Sharp Corp TVs.
Corning also expects to add production capacity to its plants in Taiwan.
ST Electronics wins MRT deal
The electronics arm of Singapore Technologies Engineering (ST Electronics) has won a contract to design and install communications systems for two of Taipei's mass rapid transit lines, the company said yesterday.
The S$36 million (US$25 million) contract is for the Songshan and Xinyi lines, with the projects expected to be completed in 2012 and 2013 respectively.
The firm said it will start work during the first quarter of next year on the 6.4km Xinyi line, which will have six underground stations, and the 8.6km Songshan line, which will have eight underground stations.
The systems will be integrated into existing ones at an operation control center and help facilitate an "efficient, reliable and safe mode of transportation," ST Electronics said.
OECD tries to ease fears
After months of turmoil on financial markets and fears about recession in the US, the Organization for Economic and Community Development (OECD) sent a reassuring message to industrialized countries yesterday: Growth is slowing, but don't panic.
Growth of the OECD economy, which includes North America, most of Europe, Japan and Australia among others, would be 2.7 percent this year and 2.3 percent next, the Paris-based organization's latest Economic Outlook said.
That figure was a sharp downwards revision from a previous forecast of 2.7 percent, made in May. The prediction for US growth was also slashed to 2 percent from 2.5 percent.
Crucially however, the US economy would avoid recession despite weakness in the housing market, the OECD said.
BYD sees more Nokia orders
BYD Electronic (International) Co (比亞迪), a Chinese contract manufacturer of mobile phones, said that its largest customer, Nokia Oyj, will raise orders next year.
"Nokia will substantially increase orders," BYD chairman Wang Chuan-fu (王傳福) told reporters at a briefing in Hong Kong yesterday.
Nokia accounted for 76.4 percent of total sales in the first half, BYD said. The Shenzhen-based company said it had 1.85 billion yuan (US$250 million) in revenue in the six months through June.
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