Sinosteel to visit Taiwan
Sinosteel Corp (中國中鋼), China’s second-largest iron-ore trader, plans to visit Taiwan’s China Steel Corp (中鋼) and Yieh United Steel Corp (燁聯鋼鐵) this month after Beijing agreed to lift investment curbs from last Friday.
“The tour is arranged under government guidance to push mainland companies to invest in Taiwan,” Sinosteel spokesman Li Kejie (李可傑) said yesterday in a phone interview. “We already have cooperation with Yieh United and China Steel. So far, the cooperation hasn’t reached the stage of stake purchases.”
Chinese companies are allowed to buy stakes in Taiwan’s industries from this month, the Ministry of Commerce said last week, as ties improved since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office last May. China Mobile Ltd (中國移動) agreed on Thursday to buy 12 percent of Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳), the first investment by a Chinese state-owned company in Taiwan in 60 years.
Sinosteel has agreed to provide raw materials, fuel and equipment to Yieh United, a stainless steel producer, Sinosteel said yesterday on its Web site, citing a Feb. 10 agreement with the Kaohsiung-based company.
Sinosteel also plans to set up an office in Taipei to coordinate its work with Yieh United, it said.
Tsingtao denies report
Tsingtao Brewery Co (青島啤酒), a Chinese brewer partly owned by Asahi Breweries Ltd and Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, denied a newspaper report that it plans to build a plant in Taiwan.
The Taipei-based Economic Daily News, citing a weekend report by the Nanfang Daily newspaper, quoted Tsingtao spokesman Zhang Ruixiang (張瑞祥) as saying the company may set up a Taiwan brewery following the consensus reached on Chinese investment in Taiwan.
“We have no plan to build our own plant” in Taiwan, Zhang said in a phone interview yesterday. “We already have a beer venture through a collaboration in Taiwan and have a good relationship with our partner.”
He also denied having been interviewed by the Guangzhou, China-based Nanfang Daily.
Tsingtao in 2002 gave Taiwan’s Sanyo Whisbih Group brewing technology and the use of its brand name for a venture able to make 100,000 tonnes of beer a year, Tsingtao said in a statement at the time. Tsingtao gets royalties, Zhang said yesterday, declining to say how much.
Tsingtao may take as much as a 30 percent stake in the venture after Taiwan begins letting Chinese companies investing, the statement said.
NT dollar rises again
The New Taiwan dollar rose for a third day on speculation closer ties with China, the world’s fastest-growing major economy, will help end a recession and draw foreign funds.
The currency climbed to its highest level this year after an agreement was signed last week ending a six-decade ban on Chinese investment in Taiwan and increased direct flights.
“Fundamentally, things are quite supportive for the [New] Taiwan dollar and, like South Korea last week, Taiwan is expected to report improved trade and export numbers,” said Wai Ho Leong, an economist at Barclays Capital Plc. “The improvement in China and Taiwan trade and investment ties has also been quite supportive.”
The NT dollar rose 0.6 percent to NT$33.050 against the greenback as of 3:30pm and climbed as high as NT$32.833 before declining as much as 0.4 percent midday on suspected central bank intervention.
At its 4pm close, the local currency closed at NT$33.192 against the greenback, or up NT$0.041, on turnover of US$2.511 billion.
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
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