State-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday said it would raise gasoline and diesel prices by NT$0.3 per liter, beginning today, to reflect price increases of international crude oil products last week.
RISING GLOBAL PRICES
CPC said global crude oil prices rose in the past week as traders reassessed how soon Iran could resume its crude exports after a preliminary nuclear deal between world powers and Iran reached on April 2.
“Iran might not resume its crude oil exports before the end of this year,” CPC said in a statement on its Web site, citing market sources.
Based on CPC’s floating pricing mechanism — which is a composite made up of 70 percent of the Dubai crude price and 30 percent of the Brent crude benchmark — the company said its oil costs rose to US$55.62 per barrel last week, up 3.07 percent compared with US$53.96 per barrel the previous week.
CPC said after factoring in the New Taiwan dollar’s appreciation of NT$0.15 against the US dollar, domestic oil prices should rise 2.07 percent this week from last week.
FORMOSA
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), the nation’s only private oil refiner, yesterday said it would raise gasoline and diesel prices by NT$0.3 per liter as well.
The refining unit of Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團) said in a statement that the news that top crude oil exporter Saudi Arabia was raising prices for shipments to Asia boosted global oil prices last week.
After the latest price adjustments, Formosa’s 98-octane unleaded gasoline would be NT$28.1 per liter, which is NT$0.2 more expensive than CPC’s equivalent product this week.
The rest of its products are cheaper than CPC’s, according to company data.
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