Shares rise on US surge
Share prices rose 1.4 percent yesterday, boosted by a surge on Wall Street and in European markets on Friday amid signs that the euro debt crisis was stabilizing.
The TAIEX rose 103.04 points to close at 7,461.12 after moving between 7,475.06 and 7,401.3 on turnover of NT$82.84 billion (US$2.74 billion).
A total of 2,333 stocks closed up, 1,527 were down and 482 remaining unchanged.
The eight main sectors on the exchange all finished higher, with food shares scoring the biggest gains, rising 3.38 percent.
Five-year bonds sold
The government sold NT$40 billion of five-year bonds at a yield of 1.08 percent at an auction yesterday, the central bank said.
The sale attracted bids for 1.49 times the amount on offer, the central bank said in a statement. The government last sold five-year debt in July at a yield of 1.18 percent. That offer had a bid-to-cover ratio of 1.85 times.
The yield compared with the 1.05 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of five finance companies.
The banking industry, which was the biggest buyer at the last auction, took 28.9 percent of the bonds on offer, down from 41.7 percent.
E.Sun sells seven-year debt
E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行), the banking arm of E. Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控), sold NT$2.9 billion of seven-year unsecured subordinated debt at an annual interest of 1.8 percent, E.Sun Financial said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
The proceeds would be used to strengthen capital structure and enhance capital adequacy ratio, the statement said.
Compeq to sell off assets
Compeq Manufacturing Co (華通電子) plans to sell 37 percent of Panasonic Electric Works Electronic Materials Taiwan Co (台灣松電工多層材料) for NT$524 million to Panasonic Electric Works Co, the holder said in a statement to the stock exchange yesterday.
Compeq could gain NT$25 million from the sale, the printed-circuit-board maker said in the statement.
Shining buys land in Nanjing
Shining Building Business Co (鄉林建設), a property developer based in Greater Taichung, has bought the rights to use 50,855m2 of land in China’s Nanjing city for 678 million yuan (US$106 million), the company said in a stock exchange statement yesterday.
The land will be developed into a hotel, offices, stores and apartments, Shining Building said.
EVA wins award for ‘Elite Class’
EVA Airways Corp (EVA, 長榮航空), the nation’s second-largest air carrier, has been awarded a Magellan award by Travel Weekly magazine for its “Elite Class,” the airline announced yesterday.
EVA Airways said its “Elite Class” — priced only slightly higher than economy class — was awarded Travel Weekly’s Airlines and Airports Gold Winner in this year’s Magellans in the economy class category.
It was chosen for the carrier’s success in highlighting the theme of “economy becomes a pleasure,” with its comfortable seating, personal entertainment units and gourmet cuisine, according to a panel of industry experts at the magazine.
The airline said the category offers passengers regular business class seating with a seat pitch of 38 inches and personal entertainment units equipped with an 8.4-inch LCD touch-screen TV.
NT dollar rises to NT$30.1
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the US currency yesterday, adding NT$0.2 to close at NT$30.1.
Turnover totaled US$802 million during the trading session.
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