Share prices close higher
Taiwanese shares closed up 1.99 percent yesterday, helped by the continued rebound of memory chip and flat panel prices, dealers said.
The weighted index gained 103.61 points to 5,314.45 on turnover of NT$102.08 billion (US$3.02 billion).
Gainers outnumbered losers 1,721 to 325, while 82 shares remained unchanged.
A total of 143 stocks surged to their 7 percent daily limit, against nine limit-down.
CPC slashes LPG prices
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday slashed the wholesale prices of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) by NT$1.75 per liter, effective today.
LPG products such as household LPG, propane and butane, as well as propane/butane mixes, will all go down by NT$1.75 per liter while automotive LPG will decrease by NT$1.0 per liter, CPC said.
The price of a 20kg household gas cylinder is expected to decrease by NT$35, CPC said.
Propane was US$470 per tonne compared to US$505 per tonne in February. Butane was priced at US$450 per tonne last month versus US$505 in February, the Australian Liquefied Petroleum Gas Association Ltd Web site showed.
E-Life directors resign
Acer Inc (宏碁) said chairman Wang Jeng-tang (王振堂) has resigned from E-Life Mall Corp’s (全國電子) board of directors.
Scott Lin (林顯郎), chief of Acer’s Taiwan unit, also resigned from the E-Life board, Acer said yesterday. Both resignations are effective immediately, the statement said. Acer will continue to reduce its stake in E-Life after cutting it to 14.27 percent as of last year, the statement said.
Bank to raise NT$10 billion
After suffering huge losses from overseas investments, Agricultural Bank of Taiwan (農業金庫) plans to raise NT$10 billion (US$295.6 million) by year’s end, a bank executive said yesterday.
The bank reported NT$9.9 billion in losses last year, which dragged down it capital adequacy ratio to around 6.5 percent, down from the statutory 8 percent, and is thus required by the financial regulator to proposal a recapitalization plan.
The bank’s vice president, Shen Chi-nan (沈其男), said the government, which owns a 49 percent stake in the bank, will inject another capital of NT$2 billion while attracting buyers from credit units of the nation’s grass-root farmers’ and fishermen’s associations to underwrite the remaining NT$8 billion-worth preferred shares.
After massive loss write-offs last year, the bank expects to turn a profit this year, Shen said.
Farglory writes off millions
Farglory Land Development Co (遠雄建設), Taiwan’s largest property developer, wrote off NT$704 million (US$21 million) of the value of its stake in Far Glory Life Insurance Co (遠雄人壽), it said in an exchange filing yesterday.
CAL buys convertible bonds
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) bought NT$250 million (US$7.4 million) in convertible bonds of China Life Insurance Co (中國人壽) in a private placement, CAL said in a filing to the stock exchange yesterday. CAL is Taiwan’s biggest airline.
NT dollar strengthens again
The New Taiwan dollar strengthened for a second day and rose 0.2 percent to close at NT$33.835 against the US currency, Taipei Forex Inc said yesterday.
The local currency gained 3.1 percent last month, but is down 3 percent this year as foreign investors’ appetite for risk wanes amid the deepening global recession that is reducing demand for Asian goods.
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
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