Shares drop in light trading
Shares prices on the Taiwan Stock Exchange dropped by 67.77 points yesterday, with the benchmark TAIEX index finishing at 7,529.67 on a slim turnover of NT$83.885 billion (US$2.62 billion).
Institutional investors sold a net value of NT$4.663 billion in Taiwanese shares, which included net sales of NT$5.192 million by foreign investors and Chinese qualified domestic institutional investors (QDIIs).
Analysts said the local bourse followed the drop in the US stock market the previous night and was an indication of a lack of buying interest among investors.
Of the eight major stock categories, plastic and paper shares gained the most, while steel, automobile and construction shares fell the sharpest.
Banks at risk, Moody*s says
Taiwanese banks are putting themselves at risk by concentrating a large part of their loans on a small number of companies, Moody*s Investors Service said yesterday.
The credit rating agency warned in a report that the banks could suffer ※significant credit losses§ if unforeseen events befall the group or sector to which they are exposed.
※Taiwanese banks have one of the highest borrower concentrations in Asia as measured by their top group exposures as a percentage of assets, equity and profit before tax and provisions,§ said Christine Kuo (峎裛顈), author of the report.
※In addition, many banks* top exposures are to the same industrial groups and the same sub-sectors, although their loan portfolios are generally diversified by broad sectors,§ she said.
MOEA courts firms in China
Taking advantage of a labor shortage in China, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) is planning to hold up to eight briefing sessions in China this year to try to 〝persuade Taiwanese businesses there to return and invest in Taiwan, a ministry official said yesterday.
The sessions will mainly take place in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta areas, where many Taiwanese businesses are clustered, said Yu Chi-cheng (潁敆旛), deputy director-general of the Department of Investment Services.
Attention will be given to those engaged in conventional industries in Dongguan and Shenzhen, which are most likely to be affected by the labor shortage, Yu said.
He said the MOEA would update the businesses on Taiwan*s investment environment and the various preferential programs that are available.
The ministry will also assist these businesses in making use of Taiwan*s R&D resources and encourage them to inject funds into technology R&D, he said.
Uni to boost China production
Taiwan*s biggest food company, Uni-President Enterprises Corp (巘擩剟氀), said yesterday it plans to invest 1 billion yuan (US$145 million) to expand production capacity in China.
※There*s still a large potential for growth§ in China, said Alex Lo (崏簹鉬), chairman of Uni-President China Holdings Ltd, the group*s China unit.
Most of the funds will be used to boost drinks production capacity over the next two-and-a-half years, Lo said.
Uni-President China is China*s second-largest diluted juice maker by market share behind Coca-Cola Co and the second-largest ready-to-drink tea maker after Tingyi (Cayman Islands) Holding Corp (邠痽媸勂芢).
NT dollar loses ground
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining NT$0.040 to close at NT$32.090. Turnover was US$734 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