Taiwanese companies continued to wire money to China and other overseas markets while repatriating a record proportion of investment income from China last year, according to a report issued by the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday.
A total of 1,147 listed companies invested in China as of the end of last year, accounting for 77.45 percent of all 1,481 firms that trade their shares on either the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE, 台灣證交所) or the Taipei Exchange (TPEx, 櫃檯買賣中心), the report showed.
The TWSE is the primary stock market in Taiwan, while the TPEx is the nation’s over-the-counter market.
Compared with the end of 2013, China-bound funds increased by a total of NT$227.6 billion (US$7.3 billion) to NT$1.942 trillion as of the end of last year, driven by investment in the computer and peripheral-equipment manufacturing sectors, as well as the electronics components industry, the report said.
Taiwanese firms listed on local bourses recorded a combined NT$213.7 billion in investment income last year, an increase of NT$68.1 billion from 2013, on the back of rising market demand and better product defect-free rates, the commission said in the report.
These companies repatriated NT$214.2 billion at the end of last year, making up 11.03 percent of their original investments, which marked the highest proportion in history, Securities and Futures Bureau deputy director-general Wang Yung-hsin (王詠心) said.
Overseas investments, not including investments in China, totaled NT$504.6 billion last year, led by investment in the semiconductor and electronics components businesses, the commission’s statistics showed.
Overseas investments generated NT$349.3 billion in investment profit last year, an increase of NT$73.4 billion from a year ago, the commission added.
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],”
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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