BANKING
Yuan deposits at five-year low
Chinese yuan deposits held by banks operating in Taiwan last month fell to the lowest level in five years amid volatility in the currency at a time of rising trade tensions between Washington and Beijing, the central bank said last week. The balance of yuan deposits, including negotiable certificates of deposit, totaled 274.69 billion yuan (US$39.70 billion) at the end of last month, down 7.59 billion yuan from a month earlier, data compiled by the central bank showed.
TECHNOLOGY
Gou boosts Hon Hai stake
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) last month raised his stake in the company for the sixth consecutive month, the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) said. Gou bought 1.79 million shares, raising the shares he owns to 1.34 billion, the TWSE said. Gou has been purchasing Hon Hai shares since November last year, raising his stake in the company to 9.63 percent as of last month. According to market estimates, Gou has spent about NT$28.09 billion buying Hon Hai shares over the six-month period in a bid to bolster market confidence in the stock.
FINANCE
Firms use special reserve
Taiwan’s financial companies have spent NT$588 million from a special reserve over the past three years to help employees keep up with the latest financial technology, transfer them to other positions or find new jobs, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said on Thursday. The reserve has reached NT$5.96 billion and financial firms are welcome to continue investments in financial technology and train their employees, Banking Bureau Deputy Director Sherri Chuang (莊琇媛) said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”