MARKETS
TAIEX slips 0.4%
Shares edged lower yesterday, but remained above 10,800 points. The index closed down 39.53 points, or 0.36 percent, at 10,828.61, after moving between 10,883.98 and 10,806.73. Turnover totaled NT$89.775 billion (US$2.91 billion), the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) said. Losses outnumbered gains 511 to 296, with 108 stocks closing unchanged, the exchange said. The New Taiwan dollar fell against the US dollar yesterday, declining NT$0.045 to close at NT$30.805 on the Taipei Forex Inc on turnover of US$584 million.
SEMICONDUCTORS
MediaTek CEO raises stake
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行) increased his shareholding of the handset chip designer to 150,500 shares as of last month in a gesture of support, TWSE statistics showed. That was a significant increase of 119,000 shares from his holding of 315,000 in July, the data showed. The share increase likely cost Tsai NT$30.89 million, based on MediaTek’s average share price of NT$259.57 last month.
BANKING
Yuan deposits rise more
Yuan deposits held by local banks rose 0.65 percent to 314.933 billion yuan at the end of last month, rising for the third straight month to their highest since March, even though the currency continued to weaken against the greenback amid concern over increasing US-China trade tensions, central bank data showed yesterday. Yuan deposits at domestic banking units rose 0.04 percent to 281.351 billion yuan last month, while those at offshore units grew 6.04 percent to 31.668 billion yuan, the data showed.
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