Eurozone woes sap TAIEX
The TAIEX fell below the 7,700 point mark yesterday as turnover shrank further amid lingering concerns over debt problems in the eurozone, dealers said.
Worries about financially struggling Spain increased after the country’s prime minister denied overnight that a request for European aid would be made any time soon amid rising protests against further austerity measures, they said.
The weighted index closed down 34.05 points, or 0.44 percent, at 7,684.63, after moving between 7,680.98 and 7,727.53, on turnover of NT$56.25 billion (US$1.92 billion).
Hon Hai to launch 60-inch TVs
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海) is likely to launch 60-inch LCD TVs at the end of this month at the earliest, market sources said yesterday.
In the initial stage, the sources said, Hon Hai will put the new flat-screen TVs, which serve as smart TVs equipped with Internet communication functions, on sale in Taiwan and China before promoting the products on the global market.
The retail prices for the TVs are likely to be higher than the preferential price of below NT$40,000 per unit Hon Hai offers to its employees, sources said.
Chinese solar plant planned
Foxconn Technology Group (富士康) and GCL-Poly Energy Holding Ltd (保利協鑫) are to build and jointly operate a solar-power plant in China’s Shanxi Province.
The companies will share revenue from selling electricity to the government utility at the 310-megawatt plant, which will use GCL’s solar cells to be assembled by Foxconn, Hong Kong-listed GCL’s executive president Shu Hua (舒樺) told Bloomberg News yesterday.
He declined to specify the investment amount or revenue split for the facility, which is scheduled to be fully operational during the first half of next year.
Kaohsiung to free up land
Greater Kaohsiung’s urban development arm said on Tuesday that over the next two years it would prepare for an expansion of the city’s industrial-use land totaling 508 hectares in an effort to persuade Taiwanese business owners operating in China and overseas to invest there.
The city authorities are planning expansions of 87 hectares at the Benjhou Industrial Park (本洲工業區), 141 hectares at a green industrial park in Daliao District (大寮), 150 hectares at a metal fasteners park in Alian District (阿蓮) and 130 hectares at a tech park in Jenwu District (仁武).
The main structures in the expanded areas are slated to be completed by 2016, the officials said.
Farmland to be reactivated
Agricultural authorities plan to restore about 6 percent of the nation’s farmland, unused for more than a decade, to bolster locally grown food supplies, officials said on Tuesday.
About 50,000 hectares of farmland would be reactivated under a four-year program beginning next year. The proposal is pending the Cabinet’s approval.
The program is expected to help increase domestically produced food, which currently stands at 32 percent of total supplies, said Lin Mei-hua, an official at the Council of Agriculture.
Farmers working on the newly opened land will be encouraged to produce corn and soybean as well as crops that can be turned into biofuel, she said.
NT dollar slips slightly
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US dollar yesterday, declining NT$0.02 to close at NT$29.405.
Turnover totaled about US$749 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
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