Twenty-one Taiwanese companies operating in the digital content and cultural creative industry will take part in this year’s New York Licensing International Expo, which will be held from next Tuesday until June 12.
The companies were invited to participate by the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Industrial Development Bureau and the nongovernmental Institute for Information Industry.
The institute and the Investment and Trade Office of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in New York will introduce the Taiwanese companies during a presentation at the TECRO office next Wednesday.
The Investment and Trade Office said that Taiwan’s digital content industry has been included in the government’s “Two Trillion and Twin Star” industry development project for the new century.
Among the items being promoted under the program are digital content software, digital audio-visual products, mobile application services, Internet services, digitalized publishing, cultural and artistic industries, and digital recreation and entertainment.
The office said Taiwan’s digital content industry shows high growth potential, adding that its production value had reached US$12.3 billion last year and was expected to surpass the US$20 billion mark by 2011.
It said that the digital content industry could help traditional industries increase their knowledge content, thereby transforming them into high value-added industries, while serving as a basis to strengthen Taiwan’s overall industrial competitiveness.
The agencies invited the companies to take part in the New York expo to help Taiwan’s industry tap into international markets and increase exchanges with US firms.
Since 2005, Taiwanese businesses, academics, government agencies and private organizations have taken part in over 20 international licensing shows, introducing Taiwan’s cultural creative products and high value-added designs.
More than 600 businesses — including major Hollywood production companies, several Fortune 500 firms and leading publishing houses — will have booths at the show, said the International Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Association (LIMA), the organizer of the event.
More than 25,000 retailers, manufacturers and licensees from around the world are expected to attend the show, the organizer said.
The Taiwan Pavilion is organized by the National Science Council and presented by the Taiwan e-Learning and Digital Archives Program under the theme “Creative Taiwan.”
The pavilion will be divided into “Licensing Brands” and “Innovative Brands” sections, with exhibitors featured in the former section to include Bright Ideas Design, Fu Jen Catholic University, National Palace Museum and 101 Gallery.
The latter will include booths by Coolframes Digiworks, Imagery Digital Graphics, Photoez Digital and Tomorrow Studio, among others.
The annual production value of the global licensing industry is approximately US$187 billion, with the figure expected to continue growing, LIMA 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