AVIATION
Starlux selects 14 pilots
Starlux Airlines (星宇航空) yesterday said that it has recruited 14 new pilot candidates, who are to be trained in Phoenix, Arizona, in March. The firm plans to hire 20 more candidates and would be accepting new applications next month, it said in a statement. The new carrier announced the recruitment plans in June and attracted more than 800 applicants, it said. The firm aims to recruit 20 pilot candidates, but only 14 passed its examination that includes a health checkup, pilot potential tests, group interviews and personal interviews. The carrier said that the 14 candidates would be trained in the US for a year before they can earn a commercial pilot license.
HOSPITALITY
Mandarin Oriental awarded
Global Traveler has unveiled the winners of its 15th annual GT Tested Reader Survey Awards and Mandarin Oriental Taipei is ranked No. 1 on the list of the best hotels in Asia, the hotel said yesterday. The awards are the most respected in the luxury travel industry and Mandarin Oriental Taipei received the recognition for the second consecutive year, it said. Each year, the publication asks frequent luxury travelers to name the best in a variety of travel-related categories. The survey hands awards to airlines, hotels, loyalty programs and travel-related products in more than 80 categories. Global Traveler readers are frequent travelers who on average make nine international and 11 domestic round-trip flights a year. Its readers spend about 60 nights per year in hotels. “This recognition reflects our commitment to service excellence and will motivate us to pursue higher standards,” the hotel said in a statement.
HOSPITALITY
Leofoo eyes frozen food
Leofoo Tourism Group (六福旅遊集團) is seeking to tap into the frozen food business by collaborating with local retailers to sell more than 20 frozen Chinese dishes from restaurants at the group’s hotels such as the Westin Taipei (六福皇宮) and Leofoo Hotel (六福客棧), the group said in a statement. The frozen dishes are priced from NT$280 upward and are available at Carrefour’s (家樂福) Sindian District (新店) outlet in New Taipei City, the group said, adding that the venture is aimed at growing food revenue and allowing more customers to enjoy its dishes. The group is planning to team up with more retailers and online platforms, it said.
EQUITIES
Local shares retreat
The TAIEX yesterday fell 0.54 percent, but remained above 10,000 points, retreating from an upturn a day earlier after the US and China reached a temporary truce in their trade dispute. The weighted index closed down 54.33 points, or 0.54 percent, at 10,083.54 on turnover of NT$143.538 billion (US$4.67 billion). All major stock categories lost ground, with the cement sector losing the most at 1.55 percent, followed by textile stocks, which fell 1.19 percent. In the bellwether electronics sector, stocks of companies in Apple Inc’s supply chain came under pressure, with shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), which provides processors for the iPhone, falling 0.43 percent to close at NT$234.
FOREIGN EXCHANGE
Greenback closes lower
The US dollar yesterday fell against the New Taiwan dollar, shedding NT$0.047 to close at NT$30.705. Turnover totaled US$822 million during the trading session. The greenback opened at NT$30.770 and moved between NT$30.678 and NT$30.780.
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
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