The central bank said it’s monitoring the weakness in the euro, Spencer Lin (林孫源), head of the central bank’s foreign exchange department, told reporters in a briefing in Taipei yesterday.
Lin declined to disclose how much of Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserve is in euros, or whether the central bank plans to reduce the amount of euros it holds.
Foreign exchange reserves rose US$2.57 billion, or 0.7 percent, to a record US$360.12 billion last month compared with US$357.56 billion in April, the central bank said yesterday.
“The main factor responsible for the increase in foreign exchange reserves in May 2010 is returns from foreign exchange reserves management,” the bank said in a statement.
The euro depreciated almost 20 percent from last year’s peak in November as investors questioned its role as a reserve currency to rival the US dollar as well as the European Central Bank’s ability to defend its legal tender.
In Taipei trading yesterday, the NT dollar fell against the US dollar, reversing earlier gains, as the central bank intervened in the final minute of trading to support exporters. Lin said the central bank asked lenders to provide documents for currency forwards contracts in a move to curb speculation.
The NT dollar weakened 0.2 percent to NT$32.35 against its US counterpart as of the 4pm close local time, according to Taipei Forex Inc. The currency earlier advanced as much as 0.4 percent. It reached NT$32.418 on June 1 and June 2, the weakest level since Dec. 22, and was 0.5 percent down for the week.
“The Taiwan dollar is fully under the control of the central bank,” said Tarsicio Tong (湯健揚), a currency trader at Union Bank of Taiwan (聯邦銀行).
“Exporters always like to sell the US dollar at a higher level. They just take a look at what the central bank does. The next day, they can sell at a higher price,” he said.
Separately, the Ministry of Finance plans to sell NT$40 billion (US$1.2 billion) in 10-year bonds on Thursday next week, and the central bank will auction NT$100 billion of 364-day certificates of deposit on Friday next week to absorb market liquidity.
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