Riding on the healthcare industry’s rapid expansion, Taiwan Fertilizer Co (台灣肥料) is planning to spin off its biotechnology division in the first half of next year to market its own-brand health supplements.
The new subsidiary will have capital of NT$100 million (US$3.3 million), a report by the Chinese-language United Evening News said on Thursday.
Taiwan Fertilizer ventured into the biotech sector in 2008 and introduced its first range of own-brand health supplements on Tuesday, which went on sale at Watsons, Taiwan’s largest cosmetics and drugstore operator.
To expand their exposure, the firm plans to sell these supplements through other retail networks such as Carrefour Corp Taiwan (家樂福), Far Eastern Geant Co (愛買量販) and other drug store chains. It is also considering setting up dedicated counters in department stores.
Furthermore, the firm has long-term plans to market its products in China and Southeast Asia, the report said.
Meanwhile, Taiwan Salt Co (台鹽) last month said it was in talks with a Japanese beauty care and drugstore operator to establish retail outlets in China selling its branded healthcare products.
The company — which has made multiple forays into the biotech sector by producing detergents, cosmetics and health supplements in recent years — currently has three sales outlets in China, with the potential partnership helping to increase its presence in the Chinese market.
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