The NT dollar reversed gains on speculation the central bank sold the currency in late trading to curb strength, according to a trader familiar with the monetary authority’s operations.
The currency climbed as much as 0.3 percent yesterday after the Ministry of Economic Affairs said last week GDP may rise as much as 8 percent this year, more than the 6.14 percent predicted by the statistics bureau in May. Investors based abroad bought NT$6.7 billion (US$208 million) more Taiwan shares than they sold yesterday, adding to net purchases of US$661 million last week, according to stock exchange data.
“The economy is doing well and some funds from overseas are being parked in short-term debt,” helping lift the NT dollar, said Tommy Huang, a fixed-income trader at Taiwan International Securities Corp (金鼎證券), adding that “if it rises too much, the central bank may intervene.”
The local currency fell 0.4 percent to close at NT$32.25 against its US counterpart, according to Taipei Forex Inc. It touched NT$32.001 on July 9, the strongest level since June 28.
The central bank has intervened to curb the NT dollar in the past three months, according to traders, who declined to be identified.
Meanwhile, the yield on the 0.875 percent bond maturing January 2015 was little changed at 1.05 percent, according to Gretai Securities Market, the nation’s biggest exchange for bonds.
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