The central bank yesterday said it will auction NT$10 billion (US$333.89 million) of two-year negotiable certificates of deposit (NCDs) on Friday, raising concerns that it may revise upward its benchmark interest rates in the near future.
It will be the first time the central bank issues NCDs of the same duration since July 2003, central bank data showed.
“We decided to issue the NCDs after various local banks suggested raising their asset allocation tools,” Tsai Chun-hsiung (蔡俊雄), director-general of the central bank’s department of banking, told a media briefing.
Data showed that the bank launched a rate-hiking cycle for four years in September 2003, after issuing NT$39 billion in two-year NCDs one-and-a-half months earlier, raising concerns that yesterday’s announcement indicated the possibility of further monetary tightening.
The central bank’s discount rate has remained at 1.875 percent for the eighth straight quarter. The bank is due to hold its next board meeting next month.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
In related news, the nation’s foreign exchange reserves rose to their highest level in history last month, increasing by US$2.51 billion to US$409.12 billion, the central bank said yesterday.
The weak US dollar helped boost the conversion rate of assets in other currencies, with returns from foreign exchange reserves management also helping raise the reserves last month, the bank said in a statement.
MARKET VALUE
The market value of securities and New Taiwan dollar deposits held by foreign portfolio investors at the end of last month totaled US$229 billion, the equivalent of 56 percent of foreign exchange reserves, the statement said.
Taiwan remains the world’s fourth-largest holder of foreign exchange reserves, behind China, Japan and Russia.
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