The New Taiwan dollar is expected to get a boost after the US Federal Reserve surprised financial markets around the globe overnight yesterday with an announcement that it has left its massive stimulus measures intact, dealers said.
As the Fed decided to keep pumping US$85 billion into the market each month through government bond and mortgage-backed securities purchases, ample liquidity is expected to prompt foreign investors to move their funds into Asia, a move that could lift the value of currencies in the region, including the NT dollar, dealers said.
After the Fed announcement following a two-day policymaking meeting that it is maintaining its bond-buying program, the US dollar index, which tracks the greenback’s movement against the currencies of the US’ major trading partners, fell at one point to its lowest level since mid-February.
In Asia, the Malaysian ringgit and the Thai baht led their regional counterparts in a rise on expectations that more spill-over effects on the back of foreign inflows from overseas will send non-US dollar currencies even higher.
Dealers said that as its Asian counterparts had rallied against the US dollar in yesterday’s session, the NT dollar is expected to follow suit and appreciate against the greenback when the local foreign exchange market reopens on Monday after the four-day Mid-Autumn Festival holiday.
On Wednesday, the US dollar closed down NT$0.008 to close at NT$29.752 in moderate trade as many investors stayed on the sidelines to await the conclusion of the Fed’s policymaking meeting.
Dealers said the South Korean won might also strengthen against the US dollar after that nation’s currency market reopens on Monday after the holiday.
Central banks in Asia, including Taiwan’s, are expected to step in to prop up the US dollar in a bid to cap the gains posted by their currencies for the sake of export growth, dealers said, adding that another round of currency depreciation competition is expected to start soon.
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