Despite worsening economic fundamentals, the recent boom in the local stock market was a result of investor expectations on improving cross-strait trade relations, Daiwa Institute of Research chief economic adviser Christine Liu (劉憶如) said yesterday.
“Money has talked … despite some foreign economists expressing pessimistic views about the local economy,” Liu told a business summit that was co-organized by the European Chamber of Commerce Taipei (ECCT) and the Chinese International Economic Cooperation Association.
She said she expected the local economy to rebound by year’s end. The TAIEX has climbed 15 percent since early this year, outperforming all Asian markets but China, which saw a 22 percent jump, she said.
In Taipei trading yesterday, the benchmark TAIEX closed up another 0.08 percent to 5,390.7 points on turnover of NT$142.575 billion (US$4.22 billion). The index has risen 8.65 percent this week.
The nation’s economy is sure to contract this year, but won’t be the worst among its Asian counterparts, Liu said.
With expectations of a boost from enhanced economic relations with China and relaxed regulations on China-based businessmen, the government’s recent cut in the gift and inheritance tax from a 50 percent to a 10 percent rate has helped attract capital inflows, all of which Liu said would contribute to economic recovery.
The ECCT also threw its support behind the government’s planned economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China and efforts in simplifying application procedures for Chinese businessmen to enter Taiwan.
“Resolving this long-standing issue will be a strong incentive for foreign companies to hold regional meetings in Taiwan, which in turn would boost the country’s business environment,” the ECCT said in a statement.
ECCT chairman Philippe Pellegrin urged Taiwan to accelerate its push for a trade enhancement agreement with the EU, without which, Taiwan would be put at a significant disadvantage to South Korea, which is close to implementing a free trade agreement with the EU, he said.
Meanwhile, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) gave a vote of no confidence to government rescue plans around the world, including Taiwan.
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