TRADE
US partnership sought
Ho Mei-yueh (何美玥), a national policy adviser to President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), in Washington on Tuesday said that the nation hopes to foster its “strategic partnership” with the US through investment and trade exchanges. Ho, who is leading a delegation to the Select USA Investment Summit, said that more than 140 representatives from 84 Taiwanese businesses could introduce combined investment of US$34 billion to the US. Ho also expressed hope of a stronger strategic partnership between Taiwan and the US. She said she had discussions with officials — including Matthew Pottinger, senior director for Asian affairs at the US National Security Council — about a variety of issues.
MANUFACTURERS
Yageo to raise prices
Passive component manufacturer Yageo Corp (國巨) is to raise prices for some capacitors by between 15 percent and 30 percent beginning next month in the wake of the persistent shortage of multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCC). The price hikes are larger than April’s increase of 8 percent to 10 percent, the Chinese-language Commercial Times reported yesterday. Yageo also told downstream clients that delivery times might be extended from 1.5 months to a maximum of six months, the report said. If the short supply of MLCC persists into the third quarter, Yageo could raise the prices of some or all product lines again, the report said. Capital Securities Corp (群益證券) said in a note that the undersupply and capacity expansion of passive components might boost Yageo’s revenue and earnings in the July-to-September quarter.
INVESTMENT
Chinese applications decline
In the first five months of the year, the Investment Commission approved 55 applications by Chinese companies to invest in Taiwan, a year-on-year decline of 17 percent. The total value of the projects was US$144 million, down 6.2 percent year-on-year, according to data released by the commission on Tuesday. Overall, applications by foreign companies to invest in Taiwan dropped 6.39 percent year-on-year to 1,260 in the five-month period, while the overall value of the investments fell 35.2 percent to US$3.31 billion, the statistics showed. Meanwhile, the number of applications approved for Taiwanese firms to invest overseas fell 18.55 percent to 180 in the five-month period from a year earlier, while the value dropped 35.52 percent to US$4.91 billion, the data showed.
REAL ESTATE
New home loans rise
New home loans at five major state-run banks totaled NT$34.37 billion (US$1.128 billion) last month, an increase of NT$5.03 billion from April, but a decrease of NT$6.93 billion from a year earlier, data released by the central bank on Tuesday showed. The monthly tally of new home loans at Bank of Taiwan (台灣銀行), Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行), First Commercial Bank (第一銀行), Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銀行) and Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫) is considered a gauge of the local property market, as they account for 40 percent of the market. Property transactions in the six special municipalities declined 13 percent sequentially last month, data from the six governments showed. The average interest rate declined to 1.655 percent last month, down 0.011 percentage points from the previous month, the lowest level since July 2010, data from the central bank showed.
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