The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday downplayed the ramifications of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co’s (鴻海精密) decision to list a subsidiary on the Shanghai Stock Exchange and its speedy approval by Chinese regulators.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission on Sunday announced that it would begin reviewing the listing application of the subsidiary, Foxconn Industrial Internet Co (FII, 富士康工業互聯網).
However, the Chinese commission yesterday approved the application — less than 60 days after Hon Hai Precision’s shareholders in January gave the green light to the listing plan.
FII, with paid-in capital of 17.72 billion yuan (US$2.8 billion), is to hold its A-share initial public offering next month.
The company gained fast-track approval in China as part of Beijing’s plans to promote “unicorn” companies in new economy sectors, such as biotechnology, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and high-end manufacturing, the FSC said.
Beijing is not explicitly aiming to poach Taiwan’s top enterprises to its capital markets, the FSC said.
FII, which is registered in China, is not eligible to seek listing in Taiwan, it said, adding that as of the September quarter last year, it earnings represented only 0.5 percent of Hon Hai’s bottom line.
Under tight capital controls imposed by Beijing, Taiwanese subsidiaries based in China can reduce the strain on their parent companies by seeking funding from the Chinese capital market, the FSC said.
While the Chinese market is significantly larger and has more attractive price-to-earnings valuation, Taiwan’s market offers more transparency and lenient capital controls, it said.
The FSC said it has instructed the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange to seek opportunities in China and Southeast Asia, as well as to devise alternative listing standards for local businesses.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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