INVESTMENT
China proposals approved
The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Investment Commission yesterday approved nine China-bound investment proposals worth a total of US$334.66 million. Catcher Technology Co (可成科技), which supplies handset casings to Apple Inc, received approval to invest US$100 million, while LCD backlight maker Chimei Materials Technology Corp (奇美材料) and Asia Cement Corp (亞洲水泥) got the go-ahead to invest US$24.5 million and US$144.58 million respectively, according to the commission’s statement.
BUSINESS
Former minister hired
The board of China Development Financial Holding Corp (中華開發金控) yesterday said it approved the hiring of former economic affairs minister Chang Chia-juch (張家祝) as its new chairman. Chang resigned from his ministry post in August after gas pipeline explosions killed 30 people in Greater Kaohsiung. He has served as chairman of China Airlines Ltd (華航) and China Steep Corp (中鋼).
AVIATION
CAL brokers US code-share
China Airlines (CAL, 華航) yesterday said that it has launched code-share services with US-based Virgin America to boost its flight network within the US. Travelers taking CAL flights to Los Angeles and San Francisco can now take advantage of the service to extend their travel to other US cities.
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