TELECOMS
Chunghwa to fund start-up
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) on Friday last week announced that it plans to participate in the B-round of funding for Taiwanese start-up 4Gamers Entertainment Inc (就肆電競), saying it is positive about the development of the e-sports industry and digital economy in the nation. Other investors leading the round of funding include Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s (阿里巴巴) Taiwan Entrepreneurs Fund (台灣創業者基金) and CDIB Capital Group (中華開發資本). The Taipei-based 4Gamers is the nation’s largest e-sports integrated marketing company. Chunghwa Telecom said it would team up with 4Gamers to organize e-sports competitions in Southeast Asia.
TRADE
TAITRA to host Indian group
The Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會) and the India Trade Promotion Organization (ITPO) on Friday last week agreed to hold talks on business cooperation in Taipei in October. The meeting would allow Taiwanese and Indian businesses to explore opportunities to work together, TAITRA said. ITPO is to attend upcoming TAITRA events, including Taitronics in October and Computex and Food Taipei next year, and help TAITRA with the Smart Asia show in October in Bengaluru.
BANKING
Exposure to China falls
Outstanding loans extended to and investments made in China by Taiwanese banks in the first quarter of this year totaled NT$1.72 trillion (US$57.5 billion), compared with NT$1.73 trillion in the previous quarter, reducing the banks’ average exposure to China relative to combined net worth from 0.54 to 0.53, the Financial Supervisory Commission said on Monday last week.
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