TAIEX up on Wall Street surge
The TAIEX closed up 1.01 percent yesterday after an overnight surge on Wall Street, with buying focusing on domestic demand-oriented stocks, in particular property firms, whose asset values are expected to be lifted by a rising New Taiwan dollar, dealers said.
The benchmark index rose 83.60 points to 8,284.03, after moving between 8,267.61 and 8,301.39, on turnover of NT$148.35 billion (US$4.79 billion).
The market opened up 1.17 percent on a knee-jerk reaction to a five-month high on Wall Street overnight after Japan’s central bank lowered its key interest rates to stimulate the country’s economy, the dealers said.
A total of 2,661 stocks closed up and 1,339 were down, while 313 remained unchanged.
China Taisan leaps in debut
The Taiwan depositary receipts (TDR) of Chinese textile maker China Taisan Technology Group Holdings Ltd (中國泰山科技集團控股公司) jumped on its debut on Taiwan’s stock exchange yesterday, with demand far outstripping supply.
China Taisan’s TDRs rose by the maximum-allowed 7 percent to NT$13.00 with only 100,000 shares changing hands.
China Taisan, which has been listed in Singapore since 2008, is a supplier of performance fabrics used in the production of sportswear and casual wear for international brands, such as Reebok, Nike, Adidas, FILA and Lotto, as well as Chinese brands including Li-Ning, Qiaodan and Septwolves. The company’s production facilities are located in Jinjiang, Fujian Province.
Taiwan doubling solar capacity
The government is doubling its installed solar power capacity to 2,000 megawatts (MW) by 2025, from an earlier target of 1,000MW, as the Renewable Energy Development Act (再生能源發展條例) boosts demand, the Bureau of Energy said in a statement on its Web site yesterday.
The government is targeting the installation of 70MW of solar panels next year, the bureau said.
Kexim, TCB sign loan deal
The Export Import Bank of Korea (Kexim) signed a US dollar--denominated syndicated loan of US$262 million with Taiwan Cooperative Bank (TCB, 合作金庫銀行) yesterday — the first time a Korean firm has ever raised capital via a syndicated loan in Taiwan.
TCB, the lead bank for the syndicated loan, said that 17 banks took part in the loan, which was oversubscribed by 30 percent against the originally planned amount of US$200 million.
The terms — interest rates plus up-front fees — for the syndication were 143 basis points over the 90-day London interbank offered rate — which was quoted at 0.2906 percent yesterday. That resulted in the cost of borrowing at 1.7206 percent, the official said.
Kexim deputy president Kim Jin-kyung said that Kexim is not only attracted by the lower cost of funds in Taiwan, but also wants to diversify its capital-raising sources in Asia.
Chang most admired: survey
Morris Chang (張忠謀), chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), is the most admired entrepreneur in the nation, according to a survey conducted by the Chinese-language CommonWealth magazine that was released yesterday.
The magazine said Chang was a “visionary thinker” who embodied a “charismatic leadership.” Respondents agreed that Chang demonstrated excellent management skills and innovation capacity, allowing TSMC to enjoy an outstanding operation performance.
HTC Corp (宏達電) chairwoman Cher Wang (王雪紅) was the first female to enter the top 10 in the survey’s 16-year history, placing eighth.
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