REAL ESTATE
Brokers out of work
As the slump in the local housing market continues, more than 1,000 real-estate brokers have lost their jobs in the past three years, Chinese Association of Real Estate Brokers chairman Lin Cheng-hsiung (林正雄) said yesterday. The Taipei-based association said the number of real-estate brokerages nationwide had dropped from 6,500 in 2014 to 5,400 last month, and the number could decline further given unfriendly government policies. The association is to continue discussing house and land sales tax cuts with the government to boost market transactions, Lin said. The regulations subject property transaction gains to income taxes of 45 percent if the houses are resold within one year of purchase, and 35 percent for houses sold within two years of purchase.
RETAIL
Mercy Wu to head Eslite
The Eslite Corp (誠品生活) board yesterday unanimously approved company vice chairwoman and president Mercy Wu (吳旻潔) as its new chairwoman with immediate effect, the bookstore chain operator said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The decision came one day after Wu’s father, Robert Wu (吳清友), the founder and chairman of Eslite, died of heart failure on Tuesday night. Mercy Wu started working as Robert Wu’s special assistant in 2005. She was promoted to executive vice president in 2007 and became vice chairwoman in 2010. Eslite shares dropped 0.67 percent to NT$148.5 on the Taipei Exchange yesterday.
TECHNOLOGY
Chipbond mum on rumors
Chipbond Technology Corp (頎邦), a driver integrated circuit packaging and testing-service provider, yesterday declined to comment on rumors that it plans to sell its Chinese unit to Chinese flat-panel manufacturer BOE Technology Group Co (京東方). The Chinese-language United Evening News reported that Chipbond might complete the sale of about 50 percent of its shares in Chipmore Technology Co Ltd (頎中科技) to BOE by the end of September. Chipbond has close business ties with BOE in China, where it runs Chipmore in Suzhou and International Semiconductor Technology Ltd (飛信) in Kunshan.
AVIATION
Fleet upgrade approved
Mandarin Airlines (華信航空), a subsidiary of China Airlines Ltd (中華航空), yesterday said its board approved a plan to introduce nine ATR72-600 aircraft to upgrade its fleet for domestic routes, beginning in November. The board has entrusted chairman Hsieh Shih-chien (謝世謙) to sign leasing agreements with British Aviation PLC for three ATR72-600 and letters of intent with Toulouse, France-based turboprop aircraft manufacturer ATR for another six 70-seat aircraft, Mandarin Airlines said.
TECHNOLOGY
Bixby to understand English
Samsung Electronics Co said its Bixby voice assistant for smartphones would start speaking English, but only in two countries: South Korea and the US. The firm said that starting yesterday, users of Galaxy S8 smartphones can ask their smartphones to turn on the flashlight, take a selfie or search for photographs in English. Samsung did not say why Bixby in English was not made available to users outside South Korea or the US, or when it might be available in other languages in other countries.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
ELECTRONICS BOOST: A predicted surge in exports would likely be driven by ICT products, exports of which have soared 84.7 percent from a year earlier, DBS said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 4 percent from 3 percent, citing robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related exports and accelerated shipment activity, which are expected to offset potential headwinds from US tariffs. “Our GDP growth forecast for 2025 is revised up to 4 percent from 3 percent to reflect front-loaded exports and strong AI demand,” Singapore-based DBS senior economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in an online briefing. Taiwan’s second-quarter performance beat expectations, with GDP growth likely surpassing 5 percent, driven by a 34.1 percent year-on-year increase in exports, Ma said, citing government
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
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