Several international Canadian enterprises set up regional operation centers in Taiwan last year, with investments amounting to US$6.5 million -- representing 47 percent annual growth -- a Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) official said yesterday.
The official said a top Canadian high-tech enterprise, Intrinsyc Software International Inc, had established its Taiwan branch in Taipei's Neihu District (
COREL CORP
Corel Corp, a leading provider of graphics software, set up a Taiwan branch after acquiring shares of InterVideo Inc's Taiwan branch and Ulead Systems Inc (
Another Canadian enterprise, Cognos Inc, a world leader in performance planning and business intelligence, established its Taiwan branch as an operational center to further develop its business by providing services to both domestic and foreign companies.
INVESTMENT
The official said a memorandum of understanding on investment development between Taiwan and Canada, signed by the MOEA's Department of Investment Services and the Canadian Trade Office in Taipei last year, has boosted investment from Canadian enterprises.
The two sides have also drawn up guidelines on bilateral trade relations this year, aiming to extend cooperation between Canadian enterprises and Taiwan's high-tech industry.
Taiwan is wooing more Canadian investors, while at the same time encouraging Taiwanese businesspeople to invest in Canada, the official 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