CPC cuts gas prices
State-run refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) on Saturday announced price cuts for both liquefied natural gas (LNG) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) this month to reflect declining global oil prices.
Effective yesterday, CPC cut the price per cubic meter of LNG by 1.41 percent on average from last month, adding that an average consumption of 30 to 45 cubic meters per month would mean an additional saving of NT$7.8 to NT$11.7 for each household, according to a press release.
Prices for household LPG will drop by NT$2.5 per kilogram, and by NT$1.3 per liter for LPG used in cars, CPC said.
As a result, the price of a 20kg household gas cylinder will drop by NT$50, the company said.
Ichia reports higher sales
Handset keypad maker Ichia Technologies Inc (毅嘉) on Saturday said that its consolidated sales rose 7.46 percent year-on-year and 0.49 percent month-on-month to NT$925.4 million (US$30.35 million) last month despite intensified competition.
The firm has been readjusting its business and client portfolios, while increasing its focus on flexible printed circuit (FPC) components. As a result, its consolidated revenue for the first 10 months of the year totaled NT$9.64 billion, up 25.10 percent year-on-year, Ichia said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Yuanta Securities Co (元大寶來證券) forecast the company’s sales for this quarter would rise slightly by 2 percent quarter-on-quarter to NT$2.83 billion, with gross margin slightly expanding to 18.7 percent from 18.6 percent in the past quarter.
Airline alliance grows market
A cross-strait aviation alliance, which includes the nation’s main carrier, China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空), on Saturday said it has enjoyed better market performance so far this year.
The alliance, dubbed the “Greater China Connection,” has increased its transport capacity by 8.8 percent year-on-year, while the volume of code-share services has soared 79.5 percent during that period, according to China Airlines.
The alliance also includes China Southern Airlines (南方航空), China Eastern Airlines (東方航空) and Xiamen Airlines (廈門航空), all of which are members of SkyTeam, one of the world’s three major airline alliances.
Fubon scraps German deal
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) said on Friday that it had scrapped plans to acquire commercial real estate in Munich, Germany, after the seller found a buyer with a better offer.
The nation’s most profitable financial conglomerate won regulatory approval in September to purchase an office building in the German city for 159.6 million euros (US$201.1 million), eyeing rental yields of between 4.5 percent and 5 percent. Fubon Financial called off the deal after the seller indicated it found better offers, the company said in a stock exchange filing, without elaborating.
Market ‘must open more’
Mitac-Synnex Group chairman Matthew Miao (苗豐強) said on Friday that Taiwan is not ready to keep up the pace of the trend of regional economic integration, as the nation needs to be more open to better integrate with other economic entities.
Miao made the remarks on the sidelines of a press conference of the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC) in Taipei. Miao, HTC Corp (宏達電) chairwoman Cher Wang (王雪紅) and Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) chairman Tsai Hong-tu (蔡宏圖) are to attend an APEC CEO summit in Beijing this week.
Miao said the market needs to be opened to benefit millions of small and medium-sized enterprises and the nation needs to ink a cross-strait trade in goods agreement with China as soon as possible, or lose competitiveness in Southeastern Asia.
Car rental revenue rises
The nation’s car rental industry reported a 3.7 percent year-on-year increase in domestic car rental revenue to NT$11.5 billion in the third quarter, thanks to a 20 percent increase in foreign visitor arrivals during the three-month period, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Friday.
The growth was also generated by an increase in demand during the summer vacation, when many people traveled around the nation, the ministry said in a report.
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