Share prices close higher
Taiwan’s benchmark index climbed 0.19 percent yesterday as rotational buying remained active in lifting old economy stocks, while select high-tech heavyweights weakened amid concerns over their earnings outlook, dealers said.
The TAIEX rose 15.13 points to 7,972.66 after moving between 7,938.92 and 7,978.16 on turnover of NT$125.62 billion (US$3.95 billion).
The market opened little changed from the close of the previous session, up 2.77 points, as investors witnessed an overnight Wall Street fall on disappointing personal income, spending and factory order figures in the US, but interest in the foodstuff and textile sectors was renewed to offset a slide in the electronics sector, the dealers said.
A total of 1,922 stocks closed up and 1,591 were down, with 307 remaining unchanged.
Amtran sales jump 28 percent
Amtran Technology Co (瑞軒科技), which makes flat-panel televisions for Vizio Inc, yesterday said sales last month jumped 28 percent year-on-year to NT$5.14 billion on recovering demand. That meant a 4 percent decline, however, from June’s NT$5.34 billion.
Amtran said TV shipments had stabilized over the past few months with monthly shipment rebounding to 300,000 units after customers completed product transition
Amtran expected shipments to grow quarter by quarter in the second half of the year. The company plans to launch new products like 3D TVs and Internet TVs later this year.
EVA makes top 10 list
EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) has made the top 10 list of international airlines in the 2010 World’s Best Awards, an annual reader survey conducted by the New York-based Travel+Leisure magazine (T+L).
EVA was ninth on the list, based on respondents’ ratings in the categories of cabin comfort, in-flight service, customer service, and value.
The awards, published in this month’s T+L issue, ranked Singapore Airlines first, a position it has held since 2007.
Second was Emirates, followed by Qatar Airways, Virgin Atlantic Airways, Cathay Pacific, Asiana Airlines, Air New Zealand, Thai Airways International, EVA Air and Korean Air.
Farglory get OK for subsidiary
Farglory Land Development Co (遠雄建設) said on Tuesday the Investment Commission had granted it approval to set up a subsidiary in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, marking its fourth investment project in China.
The new Suzhou venture, whose business centers on real-estate development, will have capital of US$50 million to be funded through the issuance of global depository receipts, the constructor said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Including the earlier projects in Tianjin, Hangzhou and Shanghai, Farglory’s total investments in China amount to US$170 million, it said.
Procurement leap expected
Taiwan expects procurement delegations from China to place orders in excess of US$20 billion this year, up more than 30 percent from US$15.2 billion last year, local media reported yesterday.
“I believe China’s procurement of goods here will rise sharply this year to US$20 billion,” Wang Chih-kang (王志剛), chairman of the quasi-official Taiwan External Trade Development Council, told the Economic Daily News.
NT dollar declines
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US dollar yesterday, declining NT$0.02 to close at NT$31.870.
Turnover totaled US$601 million during the trading session.
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