China to rein in yuan: ANZ
China’s central bank is likely to push the yuan weaker in the near term to protect its trade position against the depreciating yen, Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ANZ) said.
The yuan has appreciated nearly 8 percent against the yen since Japan launched its quantitative easing measures on April 3.
Liu Li-gang (劉利剛), ANZ’s chief economist in Greater China, said that based on a study by the bank, China’s global exports fall about 0.17 percent for every 1 percent depreciation in the yen against the yuan.
If the yen were to weaken to ¥110 against the US dollar, China’s global exports would likely decline by as much as 8 percent, he said.
“We believe China’s central bank will likely encourage yuan volatility to deter capital inflows. In addition, if China was to truly follow a basket of currencies to determine the exchange rate, the yuan could be pushed to the weak side in the near term,” Liu said.
Biotech sector to expand: MOEA
The nation’s biotechnology will continue to expand, in terms of both investment and business turnover, as the global market grows, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said on Saturday.
Investment in the biotechnology sector rose 18.66 percent year-on-year last year to NT$39.53 billion (US$1.34 billion), and sales rose 6.1 percent to NT$255 billion, the ministry said.
The upward trend will continue, the ministry said, in line with a forecast by Datamonitor that the global biotechnology market will continue to expand at a significant pace.
The forecast expected the global biotechnology market’s turnover to reach US$288.2 billion this year, up 10 percent from the previous year.
Next year, the global market will likely grow another 10.5 percent, according to the projection.
Taipei Harbor to launch ferry
Following in the footsteps of Keelung and Greater Taichung, Taipei Harbor will launch direct passenger service between Taiwan and China on May 13, Taiwan International Ports Corp (TIPC, 臺灣港務公司) said on Saturday.
The company said a passenger-cargo dual-use ship operated by Taiwan-based Wagon Shipping Co (華岡) will sail from Taipei to Pingtan in Fujian Province and back once a day, five days a week.
The ship will have capacity for 800 passengers, and the trip will take two hours and 45 minutes each way, the company said.
The service will be the latest addition to a growing lineup of cruise ferry services being offered across the Taiwan Strait, TIPC said.
Taipower to penalize employee
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said it would penalize an employee who was found to have joined the company’s component suppliers at “inappropriate places” to negotiate business deals.
The state-run utility’s action came after local media reported Taiwan Power Research Institute electronics specialist Chen Chun-hsiung (陳俊雄) lowered transformer standards for component suppliers after negotiating deals at bars.
Taipower said it had begun a probe over the scandal and will mark Chen an demerit as an administrative sanction.
Fongshan remains hot market
Fongshan (鳳山) remained the favorite location of property buyers in the Greater Kaohsiung area last month, leading the municipality’s 38 administrative districts in real-estate transactions, according to government statistics released on Saturday.
A total of 586 residential and commercial units were sold in Fongshan last month, up 86 percent from February, Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) said, citing the statistics.
The boom in Fongshan was part of an overall trend in the region, with the number of transactions of homes, shops and offices in all of Greater Kaohsiung rising 85.2 percent to 3,750 during the same period, the statistics showed.
Sanmin District (三民) came in second in terms of housing transactions last month, rising 84 percent from February to 517 units, ahead of Gushan District (鼓山) with 342 units sold last month, up 62.9 percent from a month earlier.
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