The nation’s foreign exchange reserves rose for the 17th consecutive month to a record high of US$355.04 billion last month, posting an increase of US$2.31 billion from the figure registered in February, the central bank said yesterday.
“The main factor responsible for last month’s increase was returns from foreign exchange reserves management,” said Lin Sun-yuan (林孫源), director-general of the central bank’s department of foreign exchange.
Taiwan still remained in the world’s top four in terms of its amount of foreign exchange reserves, after China, Japan and Russia, Lin said.
China’s foreign exchange reserves totaled US$2.39 trillion at the end of December, up US$126.6 billion from last September, while Japan’s decreased US$2.4 billion in February, down from a revised US$1 trillion in January, the central bank data showed.
Russia’s foreign exchange reserves rose to US$402.84 billion in February, up US$10.4 billion from the US$392.4 billion recorded at the end of January, the report said.
South Korea also saw an increase of US$1.7 billion in foreign exchange reserves last month, while Singapore and Hong Kong posted US$193.2 billion and US$247.6 billion in foreign reserves in February, it said
India’s foreign exchange reserves totaled US$253.8 billion as of March 19, down US$200 million from US$254 billion in February, data showed.
In other developments, Taiwan’s central bank sold NT$200 billion (US$6.3 billion) in certificates of deposit yesterday, more than the NT$188.2 billion that matured, the monetary authority said in a statement on its Web site yesterday.
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