■CONSUMER GOODS
MOEA plans ‘Halal’ talk
The government will hold a seminar on July 29 on Halal certification, an Islamic product certification for products considered acceptable for consumption by Muslims worldwide, to help local companies explore Islamic markets. Halal certification is recognition that food, medical, cosmetics, machinery and other daily products are permissible for use by Muslims under Islamic law, a statement by the Bureau of Foreign Trade said on Thursday. Halal is an Arabic word that means “lawful.” The market for the certified products could generate business opportunities worth more than US$1 trillion, as the world has roughly 1.8 billion Muslims, the bureau said.
■SAFETY
Unsafe goods identified
More than half of the substandard products imported to Taiwan last month were goods made in China, an official at the Consumer Protection Commission said yesterday. Liu Ching-fang (劉清芳), director of supervision and coordination at the commission, said that the agency published warnings about 65 unsafe imported goods last month, including 34 from China. A total of 59 of the warnings concerned goods classified as commercial products, including 23 chemical industrial products, 13 electronics products and four toy products. The remaining six warnings fell into the category of food and agriculture products.
■AVIATION
AIDC celebrates cockpit
The Aviation Industrial Development Corp (AIDC, 漢翔航空) held a celebration at its complex in Shalu (沙鹿) in Taichung County on Friday to mark the completion of its 100th cockpit for the Sikorsky S-92 helicopter. The AIDC and aviation firms from other countries have joined US-based Sikorsky Aircraft Corp to produce the 20-seat helicopter, which is used for civilian purposes. The S-92 is known for being safe and reliable for cargo and passenger transport, search and rescue missions and surveying resources. Sikorsky has an order for 200 S-92 helicopters, which means AIDC expects to make another 100 for a total value of NT$7 billion (US$229.5 million).
■DEVELOPMENT
Investment plans revealed
Major domestic industrial investment projects will amount to an estimated NT$4 trillion (US$131.58 billion) over the next four years, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) said on Friday. If all goes smoothly, Liu said, the investment amount will surpass the NT$1 trillion mark this year alone. By industry, Liu said, NT$163 billiion would be invested in optoelectronics, NT$143 billion in the semiconductor sector, NT$130 billion in the steel industry and NT$40 billion in the petrochemical industry.
■ENERGY
Bureau promotes bulbs
Replacing incandescent light bulbs with power-saving bulbs all around Taiwan can save an estimated 800 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 500,000 tonnes per year, the Bureau of Energy said in a statement on Friday. The reduction in emissions is equivalent to planting 27.84 million trees. Taiwan sells some 22.2 million incandescent light bulbs every year on the domestic market, which consume 1.1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, the bureau said. The bureau is promoting a five-year program, starting this year, to replace the country’s incandescent light bulbs with power-saving bulbs or other high efficiency bulbs.
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