Foreign-fund inflow climbs
Foreign-fund inflows stood at US$162.84 billion at the end of last month, an increase of US$2.92 billion from a month earlier, the Financial Supervisory Commission said yesterday.
However, foreign investors trimmed a net NT$909 million (US$30.8 million) off local shares last month, the commission said.
For the first three months of the year, foreign-fund managers remained net buyers in local shares as they purchased Taiwanese stocks worth NT$147.11 billion, the commission said.
Naphtha cracker closure delayed
CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) will delay shutting its No. 3 naphtha cracker at Greater Kaohsiung to the end of next month to ensure the company’s petrochemical supplies are “steady,” a company spokesperson said.
CPC had planned to shut the plant permanently this month, because it is building a new naphtha cracker at Greater Kaohsiung that is scheduled to be completed by the end of the year, Jessica Tang (唐苑莉), a company spokesperson, said by telephone.
The No. 3 cracker is capable of making 230,000 tonnes of ethylene a year, while the new No. 6 cracker will have the capacity to produce 600,000 tonnes per year, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.
HTC faces US investigation
The US International Trade Commission (USITC) said on Monday it had voted to launch an investigation into an accusation of touch technology patent infringement against Taoyuan-based smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電).
The USITC said Immersion Corp, a touch sense technology developing and licensing firm headquartered in California, filed complaints in February and last month, saying HTC and Motorola Mobility Inc were infringing on its technology.
The commission said the products under investigation are smartphones with a feature that alerts users when a key or icon has been touched, for instance, by vibrating or pulsing in response to the touch.
CPC privatization not ruled out
The possibility of privatizing state-owned CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) has not been ruled out, but no timetable has been set for such a transition, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) said at a legislature committee meeting on Monday.
The minister was responding to questions from lawmakers at the Economics Committee on the proposed budgets this year of Taiwan’s state-run companies, which are overseen by the ministry.
Tax study group ready to meet
The Ministry of Finance announced yesterday that the task force on taxation and finance would hold its first study group meeting tomorrow afternoon for the issue of capital gains tax on stock investments.
Four industrial representatives have been added to the 25-member study group, including Taiwan Securities Association (證券商業同業公會) chairman Hwang Min-juh (黃敏助), Polaris Securities Group (寶來證券) president Peter Huang (黃古彬), President Securities Investment Trust Co (統一證券投信) president Henry Lin (林弘立) and JP Morgan Securities (Taiwan) Ltd chairman Lin Chao-huan (林照寰).
NT dollar moves up
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against the US dollar yesterday, adding NT$0.026 to close at NT$29.480 as the continued strength of regional currencies gave local traders strong hints that they should raise their holdings in the Taiwanese unit, dealers said.
However, the greenback’s losses were squared by central bank intervention, in a bid to slow the pace of the NT dollar’s appreciation.
Turnover totaled US$558 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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
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