MACROECONOMY
Debt remains at NT$5.4tn
Taiwan’s national debt was NT$230,000 (US$7,755) per person as of the end of last month, staying unchanged from a month earlier, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. National debt amounted to NT$5.377 trillion as of the end of last month, the ministry’s data showed. Government bonds — the central government’s outstanding debt with a maturity of more than a year — totaled NT$5.1223 trillion, while treasury bills — the central government’s outstanding debt with a maturity of less than a year — stood at NT$254.8 billion. Under the Public Debt Act (公共債務法), the central government’s long-term debt is allowed to total 40.6 percent of the average GDP for the past three years, or NT$5.702 trillion.
INTERNET
YouTube hosts talent contest
Google’s video-sharing Web site YouTube is offering a launchpad to aspiring singers by hosting a talent contest online to scout future Mandopop stars. People aged 21 or over are encouraged to upload videos to YouTube of themselves performing one of four designated songs by Sept. 17, Google Taiwan announced on Sunday. Participants must choose from: Change Me by Taiwan-based US singer Wang Lee-hom (王力宏); Sky So High by Taiwan’s Shin Band; Big Big Hug by local singer A-lin (real name Huang Li-ling, 黃麗玲); and Whitney Houston’s One Moment in Time. The winner will get the opportunity to record with Sony Music, Google 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