The central bank yesterday denied it had forbidden banks to comment on the movement of NT dollars at a time when the local currency is facing appreciation pressure amid positive economic prospects and continued capital inflows.
The bank said in an e-mailed statement that five financial institutions, including SinoPac Financial Holdings Co (永豐金控), Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託銀行) and Capital Securities Corp (群益證券), have been openly forecasting the exchange rate of the NT dollar.
Moreover, Reuters Newswires also publishes NT dollar exchange rate forecasts by 12 domestic and foreign financial firms on its Web site, the central bank said, dismissing a report by the Chinese-language China Times yesterday that the bank had placed a gag order on banks.
Despite the central bank’s denial, local economists and currency traders have long been discouraged to openly comment on the NT dollar’s exchange rate or to make forecasts, although some of them did talk to the press on condition of anonymity.
As the local currency’s exchange rate is deemed as the central bank’s jurisdiction, other government agencies have tended to avoid the issue when approached by the press.
Financial Supervisory Commission Chairman Chen Yuh-chang (陳裕璋) yesterday told the legislature’s Finance Committee that he had “no comment” on the report, cable TV network UBN reported.
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