Shares rise on European hopes
Share prices rose 2.97 percent yesterday, fueled by surges in Europe and on Wall Street on Friday, as investors clung to hopes that European leaders will soon hammer out a comprehensive plan to deal with the region’s debt crisis.
Led by a rebound in high-tech and financial stocks, the TAIEX rose 114 points at the start of the session and maintained its momentum to close up 215.79 points at 7,470.3 on turnover of NT$100.869 billion (US$3.35 billion).
Companies in the Apple Inc supply chain rallied yesterday. Shares in both cellphone-case maker Catcher Technology Co (可成科技) and handset camera lens producer Largan Precision Co (大立光) rose by the maximum allowable 7 percent daily limit, while smartphone chipmaker Kinsus Interconnect Technology Co (景碩科技) climbed 6.3 percent and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) was up 3.41 percent.
Workers hold doubts over leave
About 43 percent of employees in Taiwan have no intention of taking paid family care leave, which is expected to be introduced next year, as they fear it might affect their performance evaluation and workplace relations, according to a recent poll.
However, 56 percent said they would take such leave next year, according to a poll released on Sunday by the online job bank Yes123.
The 43 percent who said they did not plan to take family leave expressed concern that their absence would increase the workload on their colleagues and thus hurt relations in the workplace. They also said they were worried it could be seen as negative factor in their work performance evaluations.
Meanwhile, in terms of annual leave, only 10.9 percent of the employees polled said they had used all their paid annual leave this year, 56 percent said they had not used any of it, while 33.1 percent said they have taken some of their paid vacation days.
Those who had not taken their annual leave said they were either too busy or were worried about making a bad impression on their supervisors.
The survey was conducted between Sept. 5 to Sept. 8. The poll collected 1,419 valid samples and had a confidence level of 95 percent, with a margin of error of 2.38 percentage points.
CAL to launch new routes
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空), the nation’s largest air carrier, is to begin operating eight new routes to China and Southeast Asia on Monday.
The air carrier is to fly between Kaohsiung and Kuala Lumpur and will service seven new cross-strait routes including Taoyuan-Haikou, Taichung-Chungking, Taoyuan-Nanchang, Kaohsiung-Changsha, Kaohsiung-Chungking, Taoyuan-Dalian and Taichung-Nanchang, it said in a statement yesterday.
“The company hopes to take care of passengers living in central and southern Taiwan by offering them more convenient routes,” the statement said.
After the launch of these routes, the air carrier’s cross-strait routes would be expanded to 24, CAL said.
Formosa Plastics sells bonds
Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑), the nation’s largest maker of polyvinyl chloride, sold NT$4 billion worth of five-year bonds at 1.35 percent to repay borrowings and improve its financial structure, the company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
The company sold NT$6 billion of five-year bonds at a coupon rate of 1.34 percent on Sept. 28.
NT dollar rises against US
The New Taiwan dollar rose against its US counterpart yesterday, adding NT$0.166 to close at NT$30.133. Turnover totaled US$733 million during the trading session.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six