The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) on Saturday sought to expand proposed investment plans to include all of Taiwan’s publicly traded companies, in addition to the financial sector.
Over the past few weeks, FSC Chairman Ding Kung-wha (丁克華) has drafted plans to promote investment in innovative start-ups through mezzanine financing and angel investment funds as a way to help boost the nation’s languishing economic growth and listless trading on the local bourses.
Ding’s plans also aim to stem the flow of capital from Taiwan, in an attempt to boost domestic investment.
Lawmakers had previously raised viability concerns about Ding’s proposal for financial sector companies to allocate 2 percent of after-tax earnings toward the incubation of promising start-ups, due to high risks associated with investing in emerging companies.
Precedent shows that about 90 percent of start-ups fail, lawmakers said.
Despite the concerns, Ding on Saturday expanded the proposal to include companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange. He revised his proposal following a meeting with representatives of the life insurance, property insurance, securities and futures brokerage and securities investment trust and consulting industries.
Securities and Futures Bureau Acting Director-General Chang Li-chen (張麗貞) said officials at the two bourses would help oversee efforts to encourage companies’ participation, while the commission would continue to fine-tune the proposal and explore appropriate easing measures.
Life Insurance Association of the Republic of China chairman Paul Hsu (許舒博) said that given adequate tax incentives, a number of insurers would be willing to furnish more than 2 percent of after-tax profits.
Last year, Taiwan’s listed companies reported aggregate net income of NT$1.83 trillion (US$56.3 billion at the current exchange rate), equivalent to a prospective NT$36.6 billion angel investment fund under the proposed 2 percent contribution. The figure would likely exceed the maximum contribution by the financial sector alone, which reported aggregate profits of NT$561.4 billion last year.
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],”