The New Taiwan dollar yesterday rose to a fresh 13-and-a-half-year high against the US dollar on the back of the appreciation of Asian currencies and inward remittance of foreign capital.
The NT dollar closed up NT$0.14 at NT$28.76 against the greenback on the Taipei Forex market, while it closed even higher, at NT$28.675, on the smaller Cosmos Foreign Exchange market.
“The NT dollar’s appreciation yesterday matched the rising pace of Asian currencies, boosted by the US Federal Reserve’s decision to keep interest rates low and not to end the quantitative easing measure earlier,” a Taipei-based currency trader at the Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行) said by telephone.
The inflow of foreign funds and the large sell-off of US dollar foreign exchange holdings by local exporters also drove the appreciation of the NT dollar, the trader said.
The NT dollar’s appreciation yesterday was in line with other major regional currencies, the pace of appreciation falling in the mid-range of that for the main Asian currencies, the central bank’s latest data showed.
The NT dollar rose 0.49 percent against the greenback yesterday, while the South Korean won closed up 0.77 percent, the highest in the region, and the Japanese yen was up 0.15 percent, the lowest among Asian currencies, data showed.
Trading volume on the currency markets was US$1.57 billion yesterday, with US$1.05 billion on the Taipei Forex exchange and US$521 million on the Cosmos market, data showed.
The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣經濟研究院) yesterday revised upward its forecast for the NT dollar’s full-year average to NT$29.247 against the greenback.
“Japan’s possible quantitative easing measure after the massive earthquake and the US dollar’s weakening strategy will boost demand for Asian currencies in the near term,” Chen Miao (陳淼), director of the institute’s macroeconomic forecasting center, told a media briefing.
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