TRADE
TAITRA, KOTRA to team up
The Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會) is to deepen collaboration with the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) this year in an effort to help both Taiwan and South Korea’s small and medium-sized enterprises expand their overseas footprints, TAITRA said in a statement yesterday. TAITRA’s Taiwan Trade Web site is to exchange overseas marketing strategies with KOTRA’s Buykorea.com, TAITRA chairman James Huang (黃志芳) said, citing the results of a meeting with KOTRA president and CEO Kim Jae-hong. Huang said KOTRA would again organize a delegation to attend Taipei Computex’s InnoVex event next year, adding that TAITRA plans to attend South Korea’s Global Mobile Vision conference to create collaboration opportunities for start-ups from the two nations. In addition, Huang said TAITRA and KOTRA would exchange information on the Southeast Asian and Indian markets and promote each other’s trade events in local markets through their representatives.
ELECTRICTY
Supply to be tight: Taipower
Power supplies are to be under their greatest pressure next week and the situation will only ease mid-month, when two new generators at a power plant in Taoyuan are brought online, state-owned Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) said yesterday. Power supplies are usually tight in July, when temperatures spike, and Taipower has forecast that the operating reserve margin this week will hover between 5.78 percent and 10.17 percent, benefiting from lower temperatures due to afternoon thunderstorms over the past few days. However, due to gradual increases in summer temperatures, and the two generators at Dah Tam Power Plant in Taoyuan not being ready to begin generating until after the middle of the month, Taipower forecast heavy pressure on supplies next week.
BANKING
Taishin sues CHB over vote
Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控) yesterday said that it has filed a civil lawsuit against Chang Hwa Bank (CHB, 彰化銀行) aiming to nullify the outcome of a board of directors election held by state-run CHB on June 16, continuing a decade-long management dispute between the two companies. Taishin Financial said that it would contest the appointment of two board directors and two independent board directors by the Ministry of Finance, as well as a board of directors appointment by the National Development Fund (國發基金), due to suspected irregularities related to the electronic balloting system used in the election.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
NT dollar falls to NT$30.528
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday fell against the US dollar, losing NT$0.1 to close at NT$30.528 as foreign investors funneled funds back to their home markets, dealers said. The weakness of other regional currencies and foreign institutional selling in local equities gave an additional boost to the US dollar, helping the currency close at its highest level since April 12, when the unit ended at NT$30.556 against the NT dollar, the dealers said. The greenback opened at NT$30.485 and moved between NT$30.400 and NT$30.530 before the close. Turnover totaled US$982 million during the trading session. Soon after the local foreign exchange market opened, the US dollar staged a rebound from a fall in the previous session and momentum accelerated as traders were encouraged by fund outflows to buy into the greenback, the dealers said.
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],”