State-owned oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday said it would cut gasoline and diesel prices by NT$0.2 per liter to reflect falling import costs for crude oil. International crude prices have declined on the expectation of a reduction in demand following the deadly earthquake in Japan.
Global prices for crude slid to US$108.49 per barrel last week from US$111.16 per barrel the previous week. The slide should have resulted in a deeper price cut of NT$0.4 per liter for gasoline and diesel products, CPC said in a statement on its Web site, but it wanted to offset losses from a previous set of smaller-than-expected price hikes.
The government previously requested that CPC help stabilize consumer prices by not fully passing price increases on to consumers.
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), the nation’s only privately run oil refiner, yesterday also said it would reduce gasoline and diesel prices by NT$0.2 per liter.
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
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
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],”
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