TAIEX dips on eurozone crisis
Concerns over the eurozone debt crisis dragged the TAIEX lower yesterday to close at below 7,100 points, as selling focused on market heavyweights, dealers said.
Turnover continued to shrink as more investors stayed on the sidelines, watching closely whether European leaders would reach an agreement to issue euro bonds to solve the debt problems.
The benchmark index closed down 53.26 points, or 0.75 percent, at 7,071.63, after moving between 7,066.39 and 7,139.76. Turnover during the session totaled NT$54.50 billion (US$1.84 billion).
At the end of the session, the textile sector encountered the heaviest losses among the market’s eight largest sectors, finishing down 3.02 percent.
Manufacturing output drops
The output of the manufacturing sector declined in the first quarter from the same period last year, amid a stagnant global economy, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
In the January-March period, output totaled NT$3.09 trillion, down 6.1 percent from NT$3.29 trillion a year ago and down 3.34 percent from the previous quarter, data from the ministry showed.
Domestic trade fell 7.35 percent to NT$1.53 trillion, while exports dropped 4.85 percent to NT$1.56 trillion, the statistics showed.
Telecom products shine
The telecommunications sector was the star performer in the nation’s consumer technology product market in the first quarter — thanks to rising demand for smartphones, the market research firm GfK Group said on Thursday.
The overall value of the consumer technology product market was NT$61.39 billion in the first three months, up 6 percent from the previous three months and up 18.6 percent from a year earlier, according to a survey released by the Germany-based researcher.
The telecom sector continued to outpace other segments, recording sales of NT$15 billion in the first quarter, up 95 percent from the same period of last year.
Trade delegation visits UAE
A trade delegation visited the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Thursday to strengthen bilateral trade ties.
The delegation comprises representatives from the Institute of Information Industry, the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association and the Export-Import Bank of the ROC and is being led by Chen Ming-shy (陳銘師), deputy director-general of Bureau of Foreign Trade.
Last year, the UAE was Taiwan’s 19th largest trade partner, with bilateral trade totaling US$5.86 billion, an increase of 17 percent from 2010, according to government statistics.
Exports to the UAE stood at US$1.58 billion last year, while imports from the gulf federation amounted to US$4.28 billion, the statistics showed.
Fubon gets new lease of life
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), the nation’s second largest financial service provider by assets, yesterday updated the embedded value of its life insurance unit, Fubon Life Insurance Co (富邦人壽), to NT$176 billion (US$5.95 billion) as of the end of last year.
That figure represented a 13.18 percent increase from the figure seen a year earlier and translated into a NT$19.5 per share increase, company data showed.
Meanwhile, the insurer’s appraised value for 20-year premiums increased 12.88 percent to NT$423.4 billion.
NT dollar loses ground
The New Taiwan dollar lost ground against the US dollar yesterday, declining NT$0.005 to close at NT$29.650.
Turnover totalled US$997 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],”
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