Finance sector boosts TAIEX
Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp (TWSE, 台灣證交所) said yesterday that as of Wednesday, the market’s capitalization totaled NT$22.22 trillion (US$751 billion), up NT$139.17 billion or 0.64 percent from the end of last week (Feb. 1). This week, the bourse’s final session was held on Wednesday ahead of the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday.
The TAIEX closed up 0.65 percent in the shortened trading week to close at 7,906.65. The financial and insurance sub-index posted the largest gains by any sector for the week at 4.13 percent, while the electronics distribution sub-index fell 3.23 percent for the week to mark the steepest decline of any sector.
Intervention boosts greenback
The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US dollar yesterday, declining NT$0.12 to close at NT$29.750 as traders took cues from a dive in the South Korean won to boost their holdings in the local currency, dealers said.
The local central bank continued its intervention efforts in late trading to further boost the greenback in an attempt to keep the Taiwan dollar even cheaper and protect the country’s global export standing, they said.
China Airlines revenue drops
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空), the nation’s largest carrier, said yesterday that consolidated revenue dropped 8.21 percent to NT$10.56 billion (US$354.96 million) last month from a year ago.
The company attributed the decline to a low base, as the Lunar New Year holidays in January last year raised demand for passanger air travel.
CAL president Sun Hung-hsiang (孫洪祥) said last month that the company’s passenger business would remain strong this year, while the worst appeared to be over for its cargo business. For the whole of last year, revenue inched up 0.28 percent to NT$132.61 billion, company data showed.
Audit committees set up
The Financial Supervisory Commission on Thursday required financial services providers and non-financial companies with capital of NT$50 billion (US$1.68 billion) or more to set up audit committees to strengthen their corporate governance.
A total of 116 publicly traded firms meet the threshold and have to set up audit committees accordingly, the commission said, adding that the requirement was part of efforts to progressively introduce international corporate governance standards.
Companies whose independent directors are due to step down at the end of this year may postpone the establishment of audit committees until after the elections of new board members, the commission said.
TSMC to pay NT$3 dividend
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said on Tuesday that its board approved a management proposal to distribute a NT$3.0 cash dividend per share to shareholders on the back of last year’s profits.
Last year, the company reported consolidated revenue of NT$506.25 billion and a net income of NT$166.16 billion, with earnings per share of NT$6.41.
The board also agreed to distribute a total of NT$22.23 billion in cash bonuses and profit sharing to employees. The proposed cash dividend of NT$3 per share and other proposals will be voted on at the company’s annual general meeting on June 11 this year.
New BlackBerry released
The latest smartphone made by Canadian handset maker BlackBerry, previously known as Research In Motion Inc, will go on sale in Taiwan later this year through Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大), the country’s second-largest telecoms operator.
Josephine Juan (阮淑祥), a spokeswoman for Taiwan Mobile, said on Thursday that the company has decided to sell the new 4.2-inch device, with the actual launch timetable depending on BlackBerry’s shipment schedule.
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), Taiwan’s largest mobile provider, said it is still evaluating the possibility of introducing the new Z10, but Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信), the country’s No. 3 carrier, said it has no plans to launch the device.
On Wednesday, local media reported that the Z10 is expected to hit Taiwanese stores in the second quarter, without identifying which carriers would sell the new smartphone.
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