STOCK MARKET
Foreign inflows increase
Foreign institutional investors in Taiwan last month registered a net fund inflow of US$3.32 billion, increasing from the previous month, government statistics showed. Data released on Friday by the Financial Supervisory Commission showed that last month’s net inflow beat January’s figure of US$2.65 billion and was the highest monthly inflow since June last year, when it reached US$4.05 billion. Riding a wave of high liquidity, the TAIEX has risen 496.97 points, or 5.37 percent, since the beginning of this year. In the first two months of the year, foreign institutional investors bought a net NT$95.3 billion (US$3.07 billion) worth of shares on the local main bourse, the commission said.
STOCK MARKET
THSRC included in index
Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp (THSRC, 台灣高鐵) has been included in the FTSE TWSE Taiwan Mid-Cap 100 Index after a quarterly review by the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The adjustment is to take effect on March 20, the exchange said. The company was listed on the main board on Oct. 27 last year, with a share price of NT$15.15.
BANKING
Banks to offer Apple Pay
Seven banks in Taiwan have obtained the Financial Supervisory Commission’s approval to provide services offered by Apple Pay. The banks are Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank (台北富邦銀行), Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行), E.Sun Commercial Bank (玉山銀行), Taishin International Bank (台新銀行), CTBC Bank (中國信託銀行), First Commercial Bank (第一銀行) and Union Bank of Taiwan (聯邦銀行), the Banking Bureau said. It is still unknown when Apple Pay will be available in Taiwan, since it depends on Apple’s cooperation with the banks, it 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