CURRENCY
Yuan deposits hit US$16.2bn
A total of 98.66 billion Chinese yuan (US$16.2 billion) was deposited in the nation’s domestic banking units (DBUs) and overseas banking units (OBUs) as of the end of last month, the central bank said yesterday. The figure compares with 85.14 billion yuan recorded at the end of August, the bank said. Total yuan deposits in the nation had reached the 100 billion mark earlier this month, the central bank said. The outstanding balance of deposits totaled 66.28 billion yuan in the 62 DBUs as of the end of last month, from 54.45 billion yuan recorded the previous month, while those in the 55 OBUs totaled 32.38 billion yuan, data released by the central bank showed.
TELECOMS
Apple pre-sale goes well
The limited number of gold iPhone 5S devices put up for pre-sale by Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) sold out in half an hour, the company said yesterday. The nation’s largest telecommunication service provider began to accept pre-orders for Apple Inc’s new generation of iPhones on Monday morning, but it did not reveal how many units were available for sale. The iPhone 5S comes in three colors (gold, silver and space gray) and three storage sizes (16GB, 32GB and 64GB). All nine iPhone 5S models up for pre-sale sold out within an hour, Chunghwa Telecom said. The iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C will hit local stores on Friday next week.
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