Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store Co (新光三越) yesterday sealed a deal with the Bureau of High Speed Rail to lease a building at Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to turn it into a shopping complex.
The nation’s leading chain department store, which won the 10-year operate-transfer (OT) contract last week for NT$505 million (US$15.6 million), will turn the building into a department store, which is slated to open next spring.
The deal will add 4.5 ping (15m²) of floor space to an adjacent Shin Kong department store that has 260,000 ping of floor space and is also due to open next spring.
Wu Tung-hsing (吳東興), chairman of the department store, said he hoped the OT project would enable his company to better serve residents of northern Kaohsiung.
The government-owned building, located between high-speed rail and mass rapid transit stations in Zuoying, has five stories above ground and two stories below ground. The MRT and high-speed rail stations are connected to it underground.
Chang Tze-yu (張子裕), deputy director of the station area development division at the bureau, said the OT project was part of a transit-oriented development plan to generate revenues and boost prosperity near high-speed rail stations. In the contract, the company may extend the lease by five years if it makes a profit in four of the contract’s 10 years.
Wu Nai-tzu (吳奈慈), regional director at Jones Land LaSalle, a property consulting firm, said the transaction promised a fair profitability outlook in light of heavy passenger traffic flow and scarce retail competition in the area.
In Italy’s storied gold-making hubs, jewelers are reworking their designs to trim gold content as they race to blunt the effect of record prices and appeal to shoppers watching their budgets. Gold prices hit a record high on Thursday, surging near US$5,600 an ounce, more than double a year ago as geopolitical concerns and jitters over trade pushed investors toward the safe-haven asset. The rally is putting undue pressure on small artisans as they face mounting demands from customers, including international brands, to produce cheaper items, from signature pieces to wedding rings, according to interviews with four independent jewelers in Italy’s main
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has talked up the benefits of a weaker yen in a campaign speech, adopting a tone at odds with her finance ministry, which has refused to rule out any options to counter excessive foreign exchange volatility. Takaichi later softened her stance, saying she did not have a preference for the yen’s direction. “People say the weak yen is bad right now, but for export industries, it’s a major opportunity,” Takaichi said on Saturday at a rally for Liberal Democratic Party candidate Daishiro Yamagiwa in Kanagawa Prefecture ahead of a snap election on Sunday. “Whether it’s selling food or
CONCERNS: Tech companies investing in AI businesses that purchase their products have raised questions among investors that they are artificially propping up demand Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Saturday said that the company would be participating in OpenAI’s latest funding round, describing it as potentially “the largest investment we’ve ever made.” “We will invest a great deal of money,” Huang told reporters while visiting Taipei. “I believe in OpenAI. The work that they do is incredible. They’re one of the most consequential companies of our time.” Huang did not say exactly how much Nvidia might contribute, but described the investment as “huge.” “Let Sam announce how much he’s going to raise — it’s for him to decide,” Huang said, referring to OpenAI
The global server market is expected to grow 12.8 percent annually this year, with artificial intelligence (AI) servers projected to account for 16.5 percent, driven by continued investment in AI infrastructure by major cloud service providers (CSPs), market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said yesterday. Global AI server shipments this year are expected to increase 28 percent year-on-year to more than 2.7 million units, driven by sustained demand from CSPs and government sovereign cloud projects, TrendForce analyst Frank Kung (龔明德) told the Taipei Times. Demand for GPU-based AI servers, including Nvidia Corp’s GB and Vera Rubin rack systems, is expected to remain high,