Winston Wong (王文洋), the eldest son of Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團) founder, Wang Yung-ching (王永慶), was said to be interested in establishing banks for the poor, using part of the estate of his late father.
Wang Ben-hu (汪笨湖), a talk show host, told local media outlets on Sunday that Wong planned to establish domestic banks that would provide microcredit to low-income or disadvantaged families to help them through their financial difficulties.
A friend and adviser to Wong, Wang Ben-hu said his friend was also poised to form a “third force” in local politics to balance the country’s political landscape.
“When time is ripe, Winston may announce his bid to enter the 2012 presidential race,” Wang Ben-hu said.
Wong, a university lecturer and chairman of the Grace T.H.W. Group (宏仁企業集團) of high-technology companies with operations mainly in China, made an aborted bid in 2007 to run in the presidential election last year.
Wong, who was booted from FPG in 1995, recently launched an international lawsuit to get to the bottom of his late father’s overseas assets, many of which are unaccounted for. Some believe the late tycoon left more than NT$500 billion (US$15.2 billion) in the US and China.
Wang Yung-ching died of cardiopulmonary arrest on Oct. 15 at his house in Short Hills, New Jersey, while on a trip to inspect FPG’s US operations.
Wang Ben-hu said his friend filed the lawsuit to prevent being surprised by potential fines or even criminal liability related to unreported funds from his father’s estate and to put the funds to good use in 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