Property deals fell last month
Transactions of residential and commercial property fell about 10 percent nationwide between Nov. 1 and Wednesday, amid cautious sentiment ahead of Saturday’s nine-in-one elections, statistics released by Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) showed.
A survey conducted by the realtor prior to the polls showed that almost 50 percent of buyers planned to enter the market after the elections. Because of this, Sinyi Realty said that housing transactions are expected to pick up this month, which would help boost the sluggish property market.
Many homebuyers are also concerned that the government will continue to introduce measures to curb rising home prices, Sinyi Realty said.
Food makers score big abroad
A delegation of 12 food manufacturers led by the Ministry of Economic Affairs secured almost US$5 million in orders during a visit to Indonesia and Vietnam last week.
The ministry said on Saturday that the food makers met with 105 potential buyers in Vietnam and 137 in Indonesia, during the trip.
According to the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (外貿協會), Vietnam and Indonesia are the sixth and eighth-largest buyers of Taiwanese food products respectively.
For the first 10 months of the year, local food exports to Vietnam rose 68.9 percent from a year earlier to US$176 million, while those to Indonesia fell 6.6 percent from a year earlier to about US$108 million, the council said.
Taishin, CHB standoff drags on
Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控) chairman Thomas Wu (吳東亮) on Friday paid a two-hour visit to the Ministry of Finance in a bid to resolve the firm’s stalemate with the government over Chang Hwa Bank’s (CHB, 彰化銀行) board elections this month.
The Taishin side spent most of the meeting urging the ministry to honor a 2005 pledge to help the conglomerate win majority control of the CHB boardroom, in return for a generous fund injection to bail out the formerly state-run lender, Vice Minister of Finance Wu Tang-chieh (吳當傑) said.
However, he said Taishin failed to propose solutions to fulfill the ministry’s wish to win two of the three independent directors’ seats so it can block attempts by Taishin to acquire CHB procedurally.
He also voiced concerns that CHB has failed to show due respect to its government-appointed president by keeping him in the dark over personnel decisions.
CAL launches NZ flights
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) is to begin operating three flights per week from Taipei to Christchurch — New Zealand’s second-largest city — via Sydney, Australia, for three months starting today.
The new service is to run on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays until Feb. 28 to meet seasonal demand, CAL said.
The carrier currently runs eight flights per week that extend to Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, from Sydney or Brisbane, also in Australia.
New Desires on sale this month
New variants of HTC Corp’s (宏達電) mid-tier Desire smartphone series will hit the market this month, the smartphone manufacturer said on Friday.
The new sets will be available at HTC, Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) and Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) stores nationwide, it added.
The HTC Desire 620 and HTC Desire 620G, both of which have a dual-SIM card slot and a 5-inch HD display, will be priced at NT$6,990 and NT$4,990 respectively, the company said in a statement.
The first model is 4G LTE capable, while the latter supports 3G data connectivity, HTC added.
Central banks embrace yuan
More than 30 central banks across the world had yuan in their foreign exchange reserves as of the end of October, while a total of 28 have signed bilateral currency swap agreements with the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), China’s state-run Economic Daily reported last week, citing Deputy PBOC Governor Hu Xiaolian (胡曉煉).
Due to the closer ties being forged with other central banks overseas, trading volume through currency swaps has topped 3 trillion yuan (US$489 billion), Hu said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”