The nation’s commercial property market is showing no signs of slowing down with NT$49.7 billion (US$1.55 billion) in transactions closing in the first half of this year, up 30 percent year-on-year, statistics from the international real estate consultancy group DTZ Debenham Tie Leung (戴德梁行) showed yesterday.
“If deals closed by unlisted companies are included, the figure jumps to nearly NT$60 billion,” the realtor’s general manager Billy Yen (顏炳立) told a media briefing.
In anticipation of a boost from a yet-to-be-signed trade pact with China, the commercial market’s full-year trading value will outperform that of last year at NT$100.3 billion, he said.
“The capital market of commercial properties, mainly in Taipei City, is as hot as in the summer,” Yen told reporters on the sideline of yesterday’s media briefing.
He said that some Chinese investors were gearing up to shop for mid-sized hotels in Taiwan with a value of less than NT$2 billion after more and more Taiwan-bound Chinese tourists are allowed in.
The total value of land auctioned off by both the government and the private sector in the first half of the year also surged four-fold to NT$56.9 billion from a year earlier, closing in on last year’s full-year NT$57.5 billion in land sales, the realtor’s statistics showed yesterday.
Looking ahead, the realtor expects trading activities to continue heating up, with the company itself to hold NT$11 billion in auctions, which will be organized in the next three months. On July 13, the auctioneer plans to liquidate two parcels of land and three properties in Taipei, including the Xining Building (西寧大樓), where Holiday KTV (好樂迪) is the current tenant, Yuan Yuan Building (元元大夏) and Li Fu Building (力福大樓), all three of which are located in the Ximending (西門町) area.
Xining Building, which sits on a 156.4 ping (517m²) parcel of land and totals 1,186.9 ping in floor space, will have a floor price of NT$880 million. The Yuan Yuan Building, which sits on a 134 ping plot of land and totals of 618 ping in floor space, will have a floor price of NT$536 million and above, while the Li Fu Building is expected to go for more than NT$230 million, the auctioneer said.
Xining Building is a much-coveted target given that it currently yields a 4.2 percent return with fixed rental incomes of NT$3.09 million per year, a manager at the realtor Eagle Lai (賴一毅) told yesterday’s media briefing.
On July 15, another auction will be held to liquidate the six-story Top Fly Tech Building (飛天科技大樓) in Neihu, which has a floor area of 6,960 ping, for a floor price of NT$3.2 billion, the realtor said.
In related news, the Central Investment Holding Co (中央投資) under the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) will be auctioned off next Wednesday. Its assets include the party headquarters’ Bade Building (八德大樓) in Taipei.
“The property is of great value if the pricing is reasonable,” Yen said.
In an exchange filing on Monday, Highwealth Construction Corp (興富發建設) said it had sold off a 2,550 ping plot of land in Taoyuan for NT$2.7 billion, or a record-high NT$1.055 million per ping.
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
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