TAIEX up 1.97 percent
Shares closed higher yesterday, with the TAIEX moving up 152.21 points, or 1.97 percent, to close at 7,847.84.
The local bourse opened at 7,763.43 and fluctuated between 7,762.85 and 7,849.38 during the day’s trading. Market turnover totaled NT$118.08 billion (US$3.72 billion).
Foreign investors and Chinese QDIIs were net buyers of NT$20.02 billion in shares.
Gainers outnumbered losers 2,473 to 675, with 204 stocks remaining unchanged.
UMC to sell corporate bonds
United Microelectronics Corp’s (UMC, 聯電) board approved a plan to sell as much as NT$10 billion in corporate bonds, the Hsinchu-based chipmaker said in a stock exchange filing yesterday.
UMC plans to pay a cash dividend of NT$0.50 per share on 2009 earnings and will invest NT$1.5 billion in UMC New Business Investment Corp, a wholly owned unit, the company said in a separate filing.
TSMC downplays quake impact
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest custom chipmaker, said its first quarter sales guidance would be unaffected by an earthquake earlier this month.
“We will deliver what we promised,” chief financial officer Lora Ho (何麗梅) said yesterday in Taipei.
TSMC said on March 4 that an earthquake in southern Taiwan had caused production losses equal to 1.5 days.
The company said on Jan. 28 it expected this quarter’s revenue to be between NT$89 billion and NT$91 billion, with a gross margin of 46.5 percent to 48.5 percent.
Hannstar eyes Global Brands
Hannstar Board Corp (瀚宇博德) said it plans to buy a stake in Global Brands Manufacture Ltd (精成科技), a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange said.
The stake will not exceed 166.5 million shares, the statement said.
Hannstar’s statement came after Global Brands’ major shareholder, Pou Chen Group (寶成集團), said on Tuesday that it would sell the 166.5 million shares, or 40 percent, it owns in the printed-circuit-board maker at prices of at least NT$27.5 per share.
Orchid show sets records
The Taiwan International Orchid Show, one of the nation’s major flower exhibitions, attracted a record number of orders and participants this year, the organizer said yesterday.
A record NT$5.5 billion in export orders — to be delivered over the next three to five years — were placed at this year’s show in Tainan County, about 53 percent higher than the previous year, Tainan County Commissioner Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智) said.
About 320,000 visitors attended the show at the Taiwan Orchid Plantation in Houbi Township (後壁) from March 6 through Monday, up 20,000 from last year.
Buyers at the show came from 32 countries, three more than last year’s 29, Su said.
Customs figures showed that exports of orchids, which account for nearly 79 percent of Taiwan’s horticultural exports, totaled US$86.8 million last year, up 7.4 percent from a year earlier.
Moreover, exports of Taiwan’s most popular orchid variety, the butterfly orchid, totaled US$63.87 million last year, up 22 percent from US$52.2 million in 2008.
NT dollar edges up
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.073 to close at NT$31.747. Turnover was US$841 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