Deutsche Post DHL, one of the world’s leading mail and logistics services groups, has launched a new all-cargo freighter service between Taipei, Nagoya in Japan and the South Korean capital, Seoul, aiming to boost the company’s express service in Asia.
The service started late last month and will connect to a daily direct overnight service between Nagoya and DHL’s global hub in Cincinnati, Ohio, bringing benefits for customers on the key trade routes between Asia and the US.
“We remain relatively optimistic about trading momentum between Taiwan and the US, following economic recovery in the US,” DHL Express general manager in Taiwan Chee Yaw-chek (朱耀杰) told a media briefing yesterday.
Chee said the growth momentum in the global express service last year has returned to a level last seen in 2008, with high-technology products still the major driver for Taiwan’s express cargo market.
That prompted the company to invest in a new route from Taiwan using a Boeing 767-300 cargo aircraft, which can save on average 9 percent in fuel costs and offers a capacity of 55 tonnes, Chee added.
The new service allows greater flexibility and capacity, with up to four hours of cut-off time extension on shipments from Taiwan to the US, Chee said, adding that local small and medium-sized enterprises may be the major beneficiaries.
DHL Express has two aircraft in Taiwan, with approximately 14 commercial flights per day.
In related news, Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運), the nation’s largest container shipping firm in terms of fleet size, is to adjust port rotations on its route between Asia and Australia.
The container shipper plans to start sailing from Yokohama in Japan from Aug. 4.
Evergreen Marine jointly operates the route with Japan’s Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK Line), Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd and Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd — known as K Line — as well as China’s Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL, 東方海外貨櫃航運).
Evergreen Marine is also adding a new Sino Australia Service (SAS) from Aug. 4 through a slot charter arrangement with China’s COSCO Container Lines Co Ltd (中遠集裝箱運輸), an indication that the firm sees strong trading demand between Asia and Australia.
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