PROPERTY
Market grows 65.5%
The nation’s property market registered 65.5 percent growth in the six special municipalities last month from a year earlier, government data showed earlier this week. There were 12,257 property deals in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung, up from 7,406 during the same period last year. New Taipei City reported the biggest increase of 95 percent, thanks to completed construction on a large apartment complex in Tamsui District (淡水). In the first two months of this year, housing transactions in the six cities gained almost 50 percent from a year earlier to 27,900 units, the data showed. Real-estate broker Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) said transactions could expand further this year as building companies are due to deliver 100,000 presale apartment units.
BANKING
Natixis to open in Taipei
Natixis, a French corporate and investment bank, on Thursday announced the opening of its first branch in Taipei as part of the company’s plans to tap into growth opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region. The company is the international corporate, investment, insurance and financial services arm of Groups BPCE, France’s second-largest banking group. Natixis Asia-Pacific Corporate and Investment Banking chief executive Alain Galloise told a news conference that the firm’s profit contribution from Asia has risen from 5 percent to 11 percent in the past four years. The company has had a representative office in Taipei since 2008 and hopes to expand its staff to 19 or 20 by the end of this year, it said.
MANUFACTURING
Growth ‘sluggish’: TIER
The local manufacturing sector flashed “yellow-blue” in January for the fourth consecutive month as the index that gauges the climate of the sector dropped from the previous month, the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣經濟研究院) said on Thursday. The institute uses a five-color system to describe domestic economic activity, with “yellow-blue” indicating sluggish growth. The institute said that the composite index for the local manufacturing sector fell 0.75 points in January from a month earlier to 10.85, but remained in the “yellow-blue” category, which ranges between 10.5 and 13 points. The lower January score reflected a reduced number of business days due to the six-day Lunar New Year holiday, the institute said. Furthermore, the first quarter is usually a slow season for many industries in the local manufacturing sector, it said.
ELECTRONICS
Apple offers callable bonds
Apple Inc listed US$1 billion of bonds on Taiwan’s over-the-counter (OTC) market yesterday, according to the Taipei Exchange. The US company issued US$1.38 billion in bonds on the local OTC market in June last year, and the second tranche of US$1 billion in bonds with a 30-year maturity carried a coupon rate of 4.3 percent, higher than the 4.15 percent offered in the first bond sale. The latest Apple bonds are callable bonds which investors can redeem after three years at the option of the issuer. Ahead of the listing, several major life insurance companies rushed to subscribe and they accounted for more than 96 percent of Apple’s new bonds, in the expectation that the US Federal Reserve’s rate hike cycle would continue to boost returns, market sources said.
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