Taiwanese shares end flat
Taiwanese shares ended flat yesterday as investors were reluctant to push prices higher following four days of rallies, dealers said.
The TAIEX index rose 2.87 points, or 0.04 percent, to 7,670.93 on turnover of NT$111.39 billion (US3.4 billion).
Gainers outnumbered losers 1,323 to 1,197, while 291 shares remained unchanged.
“Investors were afraid they might be trapped as the market was approaching rather high levels. They wanted to lock in their profits,” Capital Securities (群益證券) analyst Chen Yu-yu (陳育娛) said, adding that the index is currently capped at 7,800.
HSBC to open subsidiary
The Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday gave its go-ahead to an application by HSBC Asia Pacific Holdings (UK) Ltd for the establishment of a local subsidiary in Taiwan — the third of its kind following Citibank Taiwan Ltd (花旗台灣) and Standard Chartered Bank (Taiwan) Ltd (渣打國際商銀), a commission official said.
After its founding, the to-be-established HSBC Taiwan will enhance its capital to NT$26 billion (US$804.2 million) — far exceeding the statutory NT$10 billion threshold — from its current NT$4 billion with a total of 35 branches nationwide after the bank acquired The Chinese Bank (中華銀行) last December, said Lin Tung-liang (林棟樑), deputy director of the commission’s banking bureau.
HSBC Taiwan, which is slated to begin operation in May, will be chaired by Vincent Cheng (鄭海泉), with Nicholas Winsor to be its chief executive officer, Lin said.
Apart from HSBC, the Development Bank of Singapore (星展銀行) is expected to follow suit and establish a local subsidiary in Taiwan after the Singaporean bank acquired Bowa Commercial Bank (寶華銀行) in February, he said.
E.Sun reports increased profits
E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控) yesterday reported a better-than-expected NT$1.64 billion (US$50.8 million) in net income for the first 10 months of the year, or NT$0.45 per share, the financial service provider said in a statement.
Its banking unit said it expected to see a mild recovery in interest income after its net interest margin rebounded to 1.33 percent last month, and is forecast to go up further in the near future, the statement said.
Company president Joseph Huang (黃男州) told an investor conference that E.Sun plans to accelerate its expansion into China by seeking Chinese strategic partner banks for business cooperation or opening its own branches there, the statement said.
The company will prioritize setting up units in districts near the Yangtze River and Pearl River Delta, it said.
Tax shortfall passes US$7.3bn
The government saw a shortfall of NT$237 billion (US$7.3 billion) in tax revenue in the first 10 months of the year, the largest ever recorded in the country, said Lin Lee-jen (林麗貞), head of the ministry’s statistics department.
In the first 10-month period, Taiwan garnered NT$1.28 trillion in tax revenue, a decrease of NT$255 billion, or 16.6 percent year-on-year, the latest statistics released by the Ministry of Finance said on Wednesday.
Lin said she expected the tax revenue would take a turn for the better in the last part of the year, but there will still be a shortfall of NT$198 billion for this year.
Local currency loses ground
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining NT$0.020 to close at NT$32.330. A total of US$994 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