GOVERNMENT
MOEA names vice minister
The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday promoted Water Resources Agency Director-General Yang Wei-fu (楊偉甫) to vice minister. The ministry said Yang will take office on Jan. 5 at the earliest and that he will be the first vice minister of economic affairs with hydraulic expertise. The vice minister position has been vacant for months after former Economic Affairs minister Chang Chia-juch (張家祝) resigned and former vice minister Woody Duh (杜紫軍) took over his position.
FINANCIAL
FSC, CIRC reach consensus
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) has reached a consensus with its Chinese counterpart to pursue three goals regarding the cross-strait insurance sector: improving mutual understanding in insurance supervisory issues and experience sharing; establishing communications between cross-strait financial supervisory institutions; and building an emergency communication mechanism for further cooperation. FSC Chairman William Tseng (曾銘宗) and his Chinese counterpart, China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) Chairman Xiang Junbo (項俊波), made the remarks together after their meeting on cross-strait financial supervisory issues in the insurance sector, which was held in Beijing yesterday.
COMPUTERS
Wistron approves venture
Contract notebook computer maker Wistron Corp’s (緯創) board yesterday approved an investment in Join-Link International Technology Co Ltd (宗盈國際科技股份有限公司), with a maximum amount of NT$600 million (US$18.9 million) for the development of automobile electronics. Wistron is to hold between 51 percent and 60 percent of Join-Link shares, the company said in a statement. The firm’s shares declined 0.52 percent to NT$28.95 in Taipei trading yesterday, underperforming the TAIEX, which gained 0.6 percent.
TELECOMS
First International bankrupt
First International Telecom Corp (大眾電信), the nation’s sole personal handy-phone system (PHS) provider, yesterday said it has received formal documents from the Taipei District Court making the telecom’s bankruptcy official by terminating its restructuring program. First International Telecom said it plans to file an appeal within 10 days. The company will try to maintain normal operations and will continue to provide services to its users. PHS was a popular service in Taiwan several years ago and First International Telecom — the only telecom using the 1,900MHz frequency — at one point had about 1.5 million users.
MOBILE
HTC to release accessories
Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp (宏達電) on Wednesday said it will release a series of accessories for its RE “lifestyle camera” in the first quarter of next year to attract more people, particularly young women, to its product line. “Next year, we will release a series of RE accessories to make RE more fashionable and compatible to different clothes and user scenarios, making [it] a new leading product in the camera category,” HTC North Asia president Jack Tong (董俊良) said. Speaking at the launch event for the single-SIM Desire 820 mid-tier phone in Taipei, Tong said the new accessories might be rolled out as soon as the first quarter, though he did not specify what exactly the accessories would be.
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