TAIEX edges up 0.1 percent
Share prices closed slightly higher yesterday, with the TAIEX edging up 8.32 points, or 0.1 percent, to close at 7,770.59.
The bourse opened at 7,762.4 and fluctuated within a narrow trading range of 7,737.65 to 7,770.59.
Market turnover totaled NT$86.23 billion (US$2.71 billion), down from the previous day’s NT$103.89 billion. Foreign investors and Chinese qualified domestic institutional investors were net buyers of NT$9.5 billion in shares.
Losers outnumbered gainers 1,477 to 1,285, with 370 unchanged.
Import tax exemption extended
The Ministry of Finance has extended an exemption on sales tax for imported wheat, barley, corn and soybean, it said on its Web site yesterday.
The exemption, which as due to expire yesterday, will continue until June 9, the ministry said.
HP sues Taiwan’s Microjet
Hewlett-Packard (HP) on Monday said it was suing a Taiwan-based firm for peddling inkjet cartridges made from parts swiped from the US technology giant’s facilities in Asia.
HP has called on the US International Trade Commission to investigate whether its patents were infringed by ink cartridge manufacturer Microjet Technology (研能科技) and has filed a lawsuit in a US District Court in California, the company said in an e-mail.
The lawsuit “includes allegations related to the distribution and sale of products, which HP believes to have been stolen from HP facilities in Asia,” the company said.
“HP asserts that the sale of these products constitutes conversion of HP property and unfair competition,” it said.
A spokesman for Microjet Technology, based in Hsinchu Science Park (新竹科學園區), declined to comment yesterday.
“We don’t know anything about the lawsuit. So far we’ve not received any legal documents and will not respond to the allegations from HP,” he said.
UMC sales rise threefold
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s second-largest contract chip maker, said yesterday its revenue nearly tripled to NT$8.63 billion last month from NT$3.14 billion a year earlier.
In the first two months of the year, revenue totaled NT$17.24 billion, UMC said in a statement. The company posted revenue of NT$6.3 billion in the same period last year.
Exports boost energy use
Energy use rose for a fifth month in January after factories boosted production of semiconductors and display panels to meet export orders, the Bureau of Energy said in an e-mailed report yesterday.
Consumption of coal, petroleum, gas, thermal energy and electricity advanced 22 percent from a year earlier to the equivalent of 9.65 million kiloliters of oil, or about 1.96 million barrels a day, the bureau said.
Power consumption rose 27 percent to 17.6 billion kilowatt-hours in January, with demand from industrial companies gaining 52 percent from a year earlier.
Demand for natural gas increased 11 percent to 148.2 million cubic meters, while coal consumption climbed 23 percent to 5.15 million tonnes, it said.
Use of petroleum products rose 21 percent from a year earlier to the equivalent of 4.5 million kiloliters of oil in January, the bureau said.
New Taiwan dollar advances
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.04 to close at NT$31.850. Turnover was US$575 million.
The local currency opened at NT$31.980 and fluctuated between NT$31.824 and NT$31.980.
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