ENERGY
Taipower to issue bonds
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said its board has approved a proposal to raise NT$18 billion (US$617.54 million) through the issuance of corporate bonds to fund ongoing energy projects. Taipower said in a statement that it plans to use the proceeds from the bond sale to renovate power plants and improve infrastructure. The bonds, which include NT$2.4 billion in “green” bonds with a maturity of 10 years, are to be issued and traded from the middle of next month, the statement said. The state-run utility issued NT$8.3 billion of its first-ever green bonds in December last year.
SHIPPING
Evergreen sets up subsidiary
Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運) yesterday announced that it has established a subsidiary in Cambodia to tap into the country’s rapid economic growth and rising shipping demand for imports and exports. The firm said that Evergreen Shipping Services (Cambodia) Co Ltd would help it strengthen its presence in the country. Evergreen Marine, which delivers cargo to and from Cambodia via transshipments in other ports in Asia, said that transport services to the country would be expanded this month. An additional two container ships with capacities for 1,618 twenty-foot-equivalent units traveling between China, Vietnam and Thailand would be launched on April 25, it added.
PHARMACEUTICALS
TLC files application in US
Taiwan Liposome Co (TLC, 台灣微脂體) yesterday said that it has filed an investigational new drug application with the US Food and Drug Administration for TLC590, an opioid addiction treatment. The application is to be reviewed under the streamlined 505(b)(2) regulatory pathway, the company said. TLC590 is being developed as a nonaddictive alternative pain management treatment to opioids that features the sustained release of ropivacaine, a common local anesthetic, via the company’s proprietary liposome technology, it said. Pending the agency’s acceptance of the application, a first-in-human phase I/II clinical trial is to be initiated to assess TLC590’s effectiveness on patients undergoing hernia repair surgery compared with non-liposomal ropivacaine.
SEMICONDUCTORS
CHPT revenue jumps 31%
Chunghwa Precision Test Technology Co (CHPT, 中華精測), the nation’s largest provider of probe card testing services, yesterday reported a 31 percent jump in revenue for last month to NT$279 million, compared with NT$213 million in February. That brought the company’s first-quarter revenue to about NT$742 million, surging 37.2 percent from NT$540 million in the fourth quarter of last year, company data showed. The firm has said that advanced 7-nanometer and 10-nanometer process products would be major growth drivers this year.
SMARTPHONES
HTC sales plunge 46.66%
HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday reported that sales last month plummeted 46.66 percent annually to NT$2.77 billion. Sales in the first quarter totaled NT$8.79 billion, plunging 39.52 percent from a year earlier, company data showed. Analysts attributed the decline to the company being in between product cycles. HTC has yet to unveil its flagship smartphone for this year, while its virtual-reality business is still building scale in the fledgling market, analysts said. The company should see noticeable sales growth beginning this quarter as new products hit the market, they added.
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