TAIEX closes up for third day
The TAIEX closed up 0.48 percent yesterday, its third straight day of gains, dealers said.
The weighted index closed 40.33 points higher at 8,508.04 on turnover of NT$106.199 billion (US$3.59 billion).
Kuo Tse-yuen, an analyst with Taipei-based Hua Nan Investment Trust Corp (華南永昌投信), said the market momentum showed that investors remained cautious.
However, it also showed that investors were no longer troubled by the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that hit Japan on March 11, nor the ongoing war in Libya, Kuo said.
Clevo to open 22nd China mall
Computer contract maker Clevo Business Group (藍天企業) said on Monday its 22nd information-technology retailing mall in China was set to open in May.
The latest outlet is located in Zibo in Shandong Province.
The company, whose Buynow (百腦匯) computers and electronics chain stores are very popular in China, expects to open its 23rd outlet in Huizhou, Guangdong Province, in the second half.
Clevo has been buying plots of land to house its Buynow outlets and derives revenue from letting out store space to vendors. It aims to buy 10 lots per annum in five years and boost its total number of stores to 50 by 2015.
Inflation worries rise: poll
Morgan Stanley expects inflation to worsen in Asia this year after a survey showing that a majority of consumers in the region, including Taiwan, were concerned over rising prices, it said in a report yesterday.
“Inflation in Asia has been the most important macro issue, a concern that has been echoed by consumers in the region, where 71 percent of respondents have expressed worries about inflation over the next 12 months,” the firm said, citing its latest survey, which polled 5,270 consumers in six Asian countries.
The six countries are China, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, where 58 percent of respondents expected consumer prices to climb higher than 6 percent, while 59 percent believed their wage growth would lag behind inflation, the report said.
The figures suggested a future loss of purchasing power, after 45 percent reported they had not seen increases in their household wages over the past 12 months, the report said, adding that 46 percent of households would reduce or defer consumption.
Bank approves MOU plan
The board of the state-run Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行), the banking arm of Taiwan Financial Holding Co (台灣金控), yesterday approved a proposal to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with a Chinese peer, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC, 中國工商銀行).
Under the agreement, the two lenders would work together to promote mutual businesses, the Bank of Taiwan said in a stock exchange filing without elaborating.
EVA back in the black
EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) posted a net income of NT$12 billion, or NT$4.05 per share, last year, compared with a loss of NT$2.84 billion a year earlier, the Taoyuan-based company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
NT dollar advances
The New Taiwan dollar gained for a second day as optimism that the worst of Japan’s nuclear crisis is over boosted demand for -emerging-market assets.
The currency’s gains were limited by official data yesterday showing that growth in Taiwan’s export orders last month slowed to 5.33 percent year-on-year, the least in 16 months.
The NT dollar rose against the greenback by NT$0.03 to close at NT$29.542.
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
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts