TAIEX retreats on correction
The TAIEX retreated yesterday on a mild correction following a rally during the previous session after investors took their cue from a lackluster performance on Wall Street overnight, dealers said.
Sentiment turned cautious as stock market players waited for the next move in the eurozone after Slovakia voted against a plan to expand the European bailout fund, which aims to boost the ability of the EU to tackle the debt crisis, they said.
In addition, concerns over a possible double-dip recession in the US were heightened after the US Senate killed a US$447 billion (NT$13.6 trillion) jobs creation proposal by US President Barack Obama, they added.
The TAIEX closed down 16.36 points, or 0.22 percent, at 7,382.35, after moving between 7,323.54 and 7,407.08, on turnover of NT$96.73 billion (US$3.17 billion).
Acer reports sales growth
Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s No. 4 PC vendor, on Tuesday reported double-digit sales growth for last month.
The company said unconsolidated sales reached NT$39.97 billion last month, up 26.41 percent from August, largely as a result of back-to-school buying during the period. However, that figure was still down 31.52 percent from the same period a year earlier.
In the first nine months of this year, Acer’s unconsolidated sales totaled NT$300.5 billion, down 26.56 percent from a year ago.
Hon Hai buys Cisco facility
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海), the world’s largest contract electronics maker, said on Tuesday it had paid US$44.949 million to buy Scientific-Atlanta set-top-box facilities in Mexico from US networking service provider Cisco Systems Inc.
The production facility in the Mexican city of Juarez, which churns out video and telecommunications equipment and was acquired by Cisco in 2006, has a workforce of 5,000.
CPC resumes oil project
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said on Tuesday that it would resume construction of an oil drilling platform located off the coast of Greater Kaohsiung, after rising development costs brought the project to a halt in 2008.
CPC said in a press release that the project includes an F-shaped oil platform with 10 wells, an onshore oil depot and a 120km underwater pipeline.
The project is expected to be completed by the end of 2015.
The company said the project would produce a maximum of 566 barrels of oil and 2.18 million cubic meters of natural gas a day by 2014.
The rig is estimated to have a production life of 11 years, CPC said.
Delegation signs eight MOUs
A Taiwanese delegation has signed eight memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with Japanese companies to bolster bilateral trade ties, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Tuesday.
The MOUs cover the fields of biotechnology, information technology and software, aviation technology and the heavy metals industry, the ministry said.
The 90-member group, led by Minister without Portfolio Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘), visited several Japanese firms in Nagoya, Tokyo and Yokohama from Oct. 2 to Saturday.
The companies visited included Denso Corp, Fujitsu FIP Corp, Hakuhodo Inc and IHI Corp.
Meanwhile, the ministry has also finalized a project to advance industrial cooperation between Taiwan and Japan, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-hsiang (施顏祥) said.
“The plan has been submitted to the Executive Yuan for review,” Shih said.
NT dollar loses ground
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US currency yesterday, declining NT$0.052 to close at NT$30.400 as the greenback staged a technical rebound in the region after a recent slump, dealers said.
However, the strength of the US dollar was compromised by a rising euro, which was bolstered by hopes that Greece would be granted a new tranche of 8 billion euros (NT$336 billion) in bailout money soon to prevent an immediate default, they said.
Turnover totaled US$795 million during the trading session.
STAFF WRITER, WITH AGENCIES
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