CURRENCY
Money supply growth slows
The nation’s money supply increased last month from a year earlier, but the pace slowed due to a net outflow of foreign funds as Greece’s debt problems intensified, the central bank said yesterday. The M2 broad monetary gauge grew by 6.53 percent year-on-year last month, faster than the 6.09 percent pickup for the narrower M1B gauge, the central bank said. The central bank expects the fund flight to accelerate over the next two months, as foreign institutional investors are likely to wire home cash dividends distributed by major listed companies in Taiwan.
PHARMACEUTICALS
TTY confirms Plitidepsin deal
Drugmaker TTY Biopharm Co (台灣東洋藥品) yesterday confirmed that it had entered into an exclusive licensing and commercialization agreement for the drug Plitidepsin with Spanish biotechnology company PharmaMar SA, a unit of Zeltia SA. Plitidepsin is PharmaMar’s second anti-cancer drug candidate obtained from a marine organism and is under development for the treatment of multiple myeloma and a type of T-cell lymphoma. Under the agreement, TTY Biopharm is to market and distribute the drug in Taiwan and PharmaMar is to receive an upfront payment, royalties and additional remuneration for regulatory milestones achieved by the drug.
SHIPBUILDERS
CSBC to build ships for TS
CSBC Corp, Taiwan (CSBC, 台灣國際造船), the nation’s only listed shipbuilder, yesterday said it signed agreements with two subsidiaries of TS Lines Co (德翔海運) to build four 1,800 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) vessels. In a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange, the shipbuilder said it would build two container ships, with an option for another two, for TS Empire Holding Ltd and TS Kingdom Holding Ltd. CSBC said it expects to deliver the ships in the second quarter of 2017, without disclosing prices for the new ships.
ELECTRONICS
Tung Thih expects slowdown
Tung Thih Electronic Co (同致), the world’s third-largest supplier of smart parking systems, is expected to see weak revenue growth this month and next month after last month’s sales expanded by 28.8 percent annually to NT$541 million, the Chinese-language China Times reported yesterday, without citing sources. The company attributed the weakness to slowing China car sales, while both US and European car manufacturers enter their long summer breaks. As a result, Tung Thih forecast sales for this quarter would be flat from last quarter’s NT$1.59 billion, the report said. Sales in the first half grew by 24.27 percent from a year earlier to NT$3.02 billion, company data showed. For this year, the company expects a 10 percent to 20 percent sales growth in its parking assistance system and a 30 percent to 50 percent increase in camera system sales.
BANKING
Cathay to lend to Sacombank
Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行), a banking unit of Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), yesterday said that it and several financial firms have finalized a US$50 million syndicated loan for Vietnam’s Sacombank. Sacombank is Vietnam’s largest private lender by assets, with total listed shares worth 1.9 trillion dong (US$87.1 million). Cathay United Bank, the lead bank in the five-year deal, said in a statement that other lenders in the deal include China Construction Bank (中國建設銀行), E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行), SinoPac Leasing Co (永豐租賃) and Shanghai Commercial & Savings Bank (上海商業儲蓄銀行).
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],”