BANKING
Yuan deposits stabilizing
Yuan deposits held by banks based in Taiwan increased slightly to 305.62 billion yuan (US$45.81 billion) last month, from 305.4 billion in July, the central bank said, as interest in the currency showed signs of stabilizing. Yuan deposits at domestic banking units gained 0.16 percent to 271.44 billion yuan last month, but they declined 0.64 percent at offshore banking units to 34.17 billion yuan, the central bank said. Local lenders are no longer offering generous interest rates to encourage yuan deposits after China’s central bank cut interest rates several times to support economic growth and rate differences taper off between offshore and onshore markets, it said.
SEMICONDUCTORS
MediaTek hails US progress
Handset chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) said it has made great progress in expanding its presence in the US market, as telecom operator Sprint yesterday launched an LG Electronics smartphone that is equipped with its premium chipset. The phone uses MediaTek’s Helio P10 chipset, a company statement said. The Helio P10 offers high-performance 4G LTE octacore processors, as well as the older modems, such as CDMA2000, WCDMA, HSPA+ and GSM. The LG phone is available for Boost Mobile customers.
SOLAR
Motech to axe 200 workers
Motech Industries Inc (茂迪), one of the nation’s largest solar cell manufacturers, yesterday said it has no plan to cut jobs significantly in the short term, but it does plan to terminate the contracts of 200 foreign workers. The company said it has no plans to ask employees to take unpaid leave. The company is only introducing short-term “labor adjustments,” Motech said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange, without giving any details. Motech shares fell 1 percent to close at NT$30.85 yesterday in Taipei trading, underperforming the TAIEX, which climbed 2.81 percent.
SMARTPHONES
No Note 7 sales: Samsung
Samsung Electronics Co’s branch in Taiwan yesterday said it does not have any plans to put the Galaxy Note 7 back on the shelves in the local market at this time. The Central News Agency quoted the South Korean company as saying it would continue with its replacement policy for Taiwanese consumers, in which they can have their Galaxy Note 7 handsets replaced unconditionally from Friday this week. Samsung started to take reservations for Galaxy Note 7 replacement at noon yesterday and had received more than 4,000 requests in just two hours, the report said.
FINANCIALS
Ministry rescinds medal
The Ministry of Finance yesterday rescinded a medal of honor it had awarded former Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控) chairman Mckinney Tsai (蔡友才) after he was found to have been negligent while chairing the state-run company. The ministry said an investigation by the Financial Supervisory Commission had shown that Tsai was not worthy of the honor and that it would ask him to return the medal and certificate. In addition, the ministry has instructed new Mega Financial chairman Michael Chang (張兆順) to seek damages from Tsai for losses related to a US$180 million fine at the New York branch of Mega International Commercial Bank (兆豐銀行).
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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