Keeping consumer prices steady remains the priority in monetary policy, rather than benefiting certain industries, the central bank said yesterday, after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀) said the strength of the New Taiwan dollar has weakened local firms’ global competitiveness.
Earlier yesterday, Chang said the comparative strength of the NT dollar against the South Korean won over the last four years has increased local electronic sector’s operation costs compared with their South Korean rivals.
In response, the central bank reiterated that supply-and-demand conditions are major factors determining the currency’s exchange rates.
Moreover, the NT dollar has seen a less volatile exchange rate over the past few years compared with the South Korean won.
Citing comments by Nobel Prize in Economics recipient Christopher Sims, the bank said in a statement that monetary policy should mainly be used to stabilize consumer prices, not to benefit a single industry.
In related news, M1B, a narrow measure of money supply in circulation, rose 3.35 percent from a year ago, up from a 2.73 percent increase in August, the bank said.
The broader M2 monetary aggregate increased 3.96 percent year-on-year last month, higher than the 3.69 percent growth posted in August, data showed.
“Net foreign capital inflows and the lower base produced by net foreign capital outflows in the same period last year helped raise the upturn in M1B and M2,” the deputy head of the central bank’s economic research department Chen E-dawn (陳一端) 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],”
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