Shares slip 0.66%
Share prices closed 0.66 percent lower yesterday on profit-taking, dealers said.
The TAIEX dropped 49.58 points to 7,417.46 on turnover of NT$86.93 billion (US$2.67 billion). Losers outnumbered gainers 1,533 to 929, while 225 shares remained unchanged.
“Most of the sectors were weak except shares related to cloud computing technology,” Steven Huang of President Securities (統一證券) said.
The concept refers to computer applications or data storage as services hosted online by technology firms instead of being installed and maintained on users’ machines.
The rally of such shares came a day after Microsoft Corp signed an agreement with the government to jointly establish a research center in Taiwan for the development of Internet computing technology.
Forex reserves grow
The nation’s foreign exchange reserves gained US$8.98 billion to another new high of US$341.22 billion last month, from the level in the preceding month, the central bank said yesterday.
Lin Sun-yuan (林孫源), director-general of the bank’s department of foreign exchange, said foreign exchange management skills and rising values in reserves denominated in euro, the pound and other currencies against the greenback, caused the increase.
The issue of hot money showed improvement after the central bank voiced concern, he said without elaborating.
The foreign exchange adjustment did not alter the nation’s ranking as the fourth largest behind China, Japan and Russia.
NGAI opens local office
Natixis Global Associates International (NGAI), the distribution arm of French-based Natixis Global Asset Management (NGAM), opened its local subsidiary Natixis Securities Investment Consulting Co (法儲證券投顧) in Taipei yesterday.
The French company promised to build a Mandarin-speaking hub here before tapping the North Asia market.
The four-member local unit, headed by Michael Chang (張建榆), will support sales of both onshore and offshore funds as well as asset allocation services in the local market with help from its domestic master agent, Fubon Securities Investment Services Co (富邦投顧).
Chang forecast the nation’s sales of offshore funds would see a 10 percent to 15 percent growth, reaching US$78 billion.
Once China opens its financial market to Taiwan, the company hopes to leverage its experience in Taiwan to tap the China market, said Herve Guinamant, president and CEO of NGAI.
The company had US$668 billion in assets under management as of June 30.
China UnionPay plans local unit
China’s only bank card association plans to open an office in Taiwan amid growing demand from Chinese tourists, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday.
China UnionPay Co (中國銀聯) could set up operations in Taiwan early next year, the newspaper said, without naming its source.
The government began allowing Chinese visitors to use China UnionPay cards here in August.
The Financial Supervisory Commission said it has not received an application from China UnionPay to set up the office.
China UnionPay cards transactions in Taiwan have totaled more than NT$700 million since August, the paper said.
NT dollar gains ground
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.022 to close at NT$32.536. Turnover was US$565 million.
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