TAIEX sheds 0.94 percent
Taiwan’s share prices closed down 0.94 percent in reduced trade yesterday after Wall Street’s tumble overnight, dealers said.
The weighted index fell 66.12 points to 6,964.60, on turnover of NT$59.70 billion (US$1.90 billion).
Losers outnumbered gainers by 1,414 to 598, with 445 unchanged.
Yesterday’s losses came as no surprise after Wall Street’s latest drop, Capital Securities (群益證券) analyst Chen Yu-yu (陳育榆) said.
Ministry to raise China cap
Following the Cabinet’s announcement last Friday to relax restrictions on China-bound investments, the Ministry of Economic Affairs plans to make the official announcement on Friday, effective from Aug. 1.
With the new rule, the ceiling on China-bound investments will be raised to 60 percent of the enterprise’s net worth or consolidated net worth — whichever is higher — from the previously 40 percent.
For small and medium-sized enterprises, the ceiling on investments in China is NT$80 million, or 60 percent of the company’s net worth or consolidated net worth — whichever is higher — while the ceiling on individual investments in China is US$5 million per year.
However, enterprises headquartered in Taiwan, or subsidiaries of foreign multinational enterprises in Taiwan, are exempt from the restrictions.
Accumulated investment of less than US$50 million will go through a simplified review process conducted by the commission, while amounts less than US$1 million need only report to the commission within six months after investment.
LG, Quanta settle disputes
LG Electronics Inc and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦) agreed to stop patent disputes over technology used in PCs, ending litigation that started eight years ago.
Quanta will pay royalties to the South Korean maker and the companies will drop two patent-related lawsuits, LG said in a statement yesterday.
Vibo turns to notebooks
Local mobile operator Vibo Telecom Inc (威寶電信) said yesterday it planned to offer high-speed Internet access to notebook computer users on 3.5-generation technology next month to boost data revenues. The service was originally planned for last month.
Vibo president Chang Feng-hsiung (張豐雄) said the company planned to offer a special package next month for notebook users to access to Internet on the high-speed-downlink-packet-access (HSDPA) technology.
Vibo follows local peers including the nation’s top phone company, Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), in selling data cards for laptop users to spur data revenues amid falling voice usage.
Chang said about 1,200 base stations, mostly in the nation’s major cities, are able to offer HSDPA service, but Vibo is still doing the final testing now.
FTC to monitor school supplies
The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said yesterday that it would closely monitor the market for any signs of price rigging of school supplies and related items as students prepare to head back to class.
The commission said that, with the new school year starting on Monday, it would keep an eye out for retailers colluding to raise the price of school items such as uniforms and textbooks.
It will also issue reports to give parents of schoolchildren accurate information about the market for back-to-school items to allay their concerns and help them make wise purchasing decisions.
Any businesses found to be in violation of the commission’s price manipulation and anti-monopoly regulations will face fines ranging from NT$500,000 to NT$25 million, it 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
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts