China’s qualified direct institutional investors (QDIIs) won’t be allowed to trade on the local bourse until a cross-strait memorandum of understanding is inked, a financial official said yesterday.
“Given the flexibility in Chinese regulations, QDIIs in China will be immediately allowed to purchase commercial paper, corporate or convertible bonds or collateralized debt obligations, as well as currency-related funds, but not Taiwan Stock Exchange equities,” Securities and Futures Bureau Director-General Lee Chi-hsien (李啟賢) said.
Other potential investment vehicles for Chinese QDIIs include bank notes, short-term government bonds, forward swaps and structured notes, Lee said.
Lee’s comment came in the wake of the Financial Supervisory Commission’s (FSC) announcement on Wednesday that it planned to open the domestic stock and futures market to Chinese QDIIs.
Market expectations that the local bourse would be immediately opened to Chinese investment drove the TAIEX sharply up yesterday.
The FSC estimates that 3 percent of Chinese QDII funds, or NT$7 billion (US$210.6 million), is now able to be invested in Taiwan.
Once an MOU is inked, the cap could be raised to 10 percent, or NT$23.3 billion, Lee said.
Chinese QDIIs, however, would be prohibited from directly taking up more than a 10 percent stake in Taiwan’s listed companies.
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],”
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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