HOUSING
Loans total hits NT$6 trillion
Taiwan’s home loans totaled NT$6.0277 trillion (US$182.6 billion) at the end of last month, up 3.2 percent year-on-year and 0.09 percent month-on-month, the central bank said on Friday. Renewed buying activity on the part of home buyers by the end of the year and ahead of a new housing policy next year accounted for the increase, the bank said. Self-occupancy upheld the housing market, as first-time buyers increased their mortgage loans by NT$4.4 billion at eight major state-run banks to NT$439.8 billion last month from October, it said. However, construction financing increased 1.97 percent from a year earlier to NT$1.6463 trillion, the lowest annual increase in 23 months, reflecting the sector’s conservative attitude toward the market going forward.
SECURITIES
Chinese IPO rules to change
Chinese lawmakers cleared the way for securities laws to be changed as early as March for the nation to introduce a new registration system for initial public offerings. The Standing Committee of the Chinese National People’s Congress passed a resolution to allow the Chinese State Council to make the adjustments, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. Under a registration system, questions of IPO supply and timing would be left to companies and the market, rather than regulators.
INDUSTRY
Company profits fall
Profits earned by Chinese industrial companies last month fell 1.4 percent from a year earlier, marking a sixth consecutive month of decline, Chinese National Bureau of Statistics data showed yesterday. Industrial profits fell 1.9 percent in the first 11 months compared with the same period a year earlier, the bureau 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],”