TAIEX trades lower
The TAIEX closed 0.83 percent lower in Taipei yesterday, tracking losses in other regional markets, dealers said.
The weighted index fell 51.38 points to 6,144.53 on turnover of NT$94.92 billion (US$2.97 billion).
Gainers led losers by 1,534 to 617, with 129 stocks unchanged.
The cement sector slumped 2.23 percent, financials dropped 1.61 percent and the electronics sector fell 0.39 percent.
“We haven’t seen solid reasons for a rebound,” said David Li of Daiwa Securities SMBC-Cathay Co (大和國泰證券), predicting that the index could fall below the 6,000 level in the short term.
Chinese Mobile seeks stake
China Mobile Ltd (中國移動), the world’s biggest wireless carrier by number of users, plans to seek regulatory approval for a proposed investment in Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信), company chairman Wang Jianzhou (王建宙) said yesterday.
After the deal is approved, China Mobile won’t seek a controlling stake in Far EasTone and won’t interfere in the daily operations of the company, Wang said.
Inotera to rent factory
Inotera Memories Inc (華亞科技), a computer-memory chip joint venture set up by Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) and Micron Technology Inc, said it plans to rent a factory and equipment from parent company Nanya.
The chipmaker will pay a total of NT$1.67 billion (US$50 million) in rent for the 8-inch semiconductor plant for the next 15 years, the Taoyuan-based company said yesterday.
Shining looks to China
Local property developer Shining Building Business Co (鄉林建設) is planning to construct up to seven luxury resorts in China between 2013 and 2014, Dow Jones Newswires reported yesterday, citing company chairman Lai Cheng-i (賴正鎰).
The Taichung-based company will spend around NT$11 billion (US$334 million) on the project, Lai said in the report. Shining Building aims to build as many as 30 resorts in China by 2019.
Shining is the constructor and operator of the upscale Lalu (涵碧樓) resort at Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) in Nantou County.
Server-computer sales slump
Global server-computer sales will drop more than projected this quarter as companies rein in technology spending amid the recession, research firm IDC said.
Sales will slump 30 percent to US$10.6 billion, IDC said on Wednesday, cutting its forecast by about US$1 billion. The drop compares with the first quarter’s 25 percent fall.
“The depth of the worldwide recession increased in the first half of 2009,” said Matt Eastwood, an IDC vice president.
Still, the worst of the contraction may be over and the market should show signs of stabilization, IDC said. Full-year server sales would drop 22 percent, it predicted.
SK Chemicals inks deal
SK Chemicals Co has signed a preliminary agreement with a Taiwanese company to make a material used in solar panels.
Details on when SK Chemicals will make polysilicon haven’t yet been decided, the South Korean company said yesterday in an e-mail. An earlier report said a Taiwanese firm had agreed to transfer its technology to SK Chemicals.
NT dollar continues to fall
The New Taiwan dollar continued its fall against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining NT$0.015 to close at a daily low of NT$32.904.
A total of US$636 million changed hands during the day’s trading.
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