STOCK MARKET
Shares extend momentum
Shares in Taiwan yesterday extended momentum from the previous session to end higher as concerns over trade tensions between the US and China diminished after the latest round of negotiations, dealers said. The TAIEX closed up 68.01 points, or 0.66 percent, at 10,390.93, on turnover of NT$133.563 billion (US$4.34 billion). Foreign institutional investors bought a net NT$12.38 billion of shares, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. The local bourse has seized a good opportunity to move even higher and challenge the strong technical resistance of about 10,500 in the short term with turnover regularly NT$130 billion or higher, analysts said.
ECONOMY
GDP at least 2%: DGBAS
While Taiwan faces the challenge of slowing global economic growth, it is expected to maintain GDP growth of no less than 2 percent this year, Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) Minister Chu Tzer-ming (朱澤民) told a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday. Judging from current economic data, there is no problem for Taiwan to report 2 percent or higher GDP growth this year, Chu said. On Feb. 13, the DGBAS lowered its growth forecast to 2.27 percent from an earlier estimate of a 2.41 percent, compared with an anticipated 2.63 percent increase for last year.
ELECTRONICS
Greatek approves dividend
Greatek Electronics Inc (超豐), a consumer integrated-circuit testing and packaging firm, yesterday said its board had approved a proposal to distribute a cash dividend of NT$2.7 per share, lower than the NT$3 it paid last year. The proposed dividend, if approved by shareholders on May 24, would represent a payout ratio of 64.59 percent based on last year’s earnings per share of NT$4.18. While last year’s consolidated revenue hit a record NT$12.36 billion, up 3.4 percent year-on-year, net profit fell 5.3 percent to NT$2.38 billion on sliding gross and operating margins.
VPN PROVIDERS
Chief Telecom dividend rises
Chief Telecom Inc (是方), a virtual private network (VPN) service provider, plans to distribute a cash dividend of NT$6.5 per share, plus NT$1 per share from surplus capital, to shareholders, compared with the NT$4.97 cash dividend it paid last year. The higher payout ratio reflects the company’s record earnings and sales last year, Chief Telecom said on Friday. Net profit last year increased 26 percent annually to NT$480 million, with earnings per share of NT$7.41, while revenue grew 6.87 percent to NT$2.27 billion, the company said. Gross margin improved by 14.7 percentage points to 39.3 percent, it said.
INSURERS
Ping An mulls debut
Ping An Insurance (Group) Co (中國平安保險), China’s largest insurer by market value, is gearing up for an initial public offering of its OneConnect (金融壹賬通) unit that could value the financial management portal at about US$8 billion, people familiar with the matter said. Ping An is seeking to list OneConnect in Hong Kong as soon as the second half of this year, one of the people said. The share sale could raise roughly US$1 billion, the people said. Gareth Hewett, a spokesman for OneConnect, declined to comment. The company provides cloud computing and other technology services to small and medium-sized financial institutions.
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