Macroeconomics
Investments from China soar
A total of 21 planned investments from China were approved last month by the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Investment Commission, representing an annual increase of 75 percent compared with the same period last year, the commission said on Tuesday. The new worth of the approved Chinese investments last month was US$6.4 million, up 37.86 percent from a year earlier, the commission said. China-bound investments from Taiwan contracted 35.48 percent annually to only 20 planned investments last month, with the combined investments shrinking 55.04 percent year-on-year to US$328 million last month, commission data showed. The commission said that it is still observing if the robust request of Chinese investments recorded last month would extend throughout this year.
Automakers
Yulon eyes Chinese market
Taiwanese automaker Yulon Group (裕隆集團) yesterday said that it expects the company’s operations this year to be mainly driven by robust demand from the Chinese market. Yulon vice chairman Chen Kuo-rong (陳國榮) told reporters that although the government carried out a series of economic stimulus measures, the outlook of Taiwan’s auto market remains clouded as there are many unpredictable factors in the global economy. He said he expects the nation’s auto market to sell 420,000 cars this year, a flattish performance compared with last year. Chen said that he foresees Yulon’s sales in the Chinese market could grow as much as 24 percent annually to 296,000 cars this year. Yulon’s revenues were NT$13.11 billion (US$391.46 million) last month, falling 13.26 percent from NT$15.12 billion made in the same period last year, according to the company’s filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Components
Laster expects more demand
Laster Tech Corp Ltd (麗清科技), a Taiwanese LED chip and lighting products supplier, yesterday said that it expects its business performance this year to be driven by the growing demand for LED automotive lighting products. Laster said that it has successfully codeveloped a new high-end LED automotive lighting product with a client, and it expects to start shipping the new product next quarter. Laster’s revenues grew 3.84 percent to NT$283 million last month from a year earlier. The company’s combined revenues last year stood at NT$2.75 billion, surging 34.83 percent from NT$2.04 billion recorded in the previous year, according to according to company data.
Finance
Cash flows accelarate
Foreign funds continued to pull out of Taiwan last month, but cash flows accelerated in the local market to meet a spike in spending ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, the central bank said yesterday. That explained why the broad money gauge of M2 advanced 5.63 percent last month from a year earlier, slower than the narrow measure of M1B at 6.92 percent, the central bank said. Taiwanese firms traditionally give employees bonuses ahead of the Lunar New Year and people distribute “lucky” red envelopes to their children and parents over the holiday. M1B refers to cash and cash equivalents and M2 encompasses savings deposits, time-savings deposits, foreign currency deposits, mutual funds and M1B. Equity analysts closely track M1B movements and interpret a faster advance to an increase in equity investment willingness.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained