The central bank sold NT$100 billion (US$3.33 billion) of 364-day negotiable certificates of deposit (NCD) at an average interest rate of 0.853 percent at an auction yesterday, it said in a statement.
The 0.853 percent interest rate marked the lowest level since February last year, an indication that domestic financial institutions have been continuing to increase their purchases of NCDs to avoid high-risk equity market investments.
It was also lower than the 0.87 percent interest rate recorded on July 6, the last time the central bank sold a similar amount of 364-day NCDs, the bank’s data showed.
DOWNTREND
The interest rate of 364-day NCDs has been on a downward trend since climbing to 1.054 percent in August last year because of growing hedging demand as the eurozone debt crisis worsens.
The sale yesterday attracted bids for 3.56 times the amount on offer, higher than the 3.19 times recorded last month, providing more evidence of the strong demand from investors, as the local market has been awash in liquidity.
The central bank has been issuing 364-day NCDs continuously following the expiration of the old issuance to drain excess liquidity.
The sale of the instruments since April 2000 was the equivalent of increasing the required reserve ratio by 4.5 percentage points, the bank said.
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