Property transactions rose 8 percent to 21,982 units last month, the highest in five years, as buying interest continued to improve on the back of real demand.
Buying interest picked up after the Lunar New Year and continued to rise in April and last month, thanks to promotions for presale and new projects that also benefited existing house transfers, Eastern Realty Co (東森房屋) manager Layla Yu (于靜芳) said.
Kaohsiung outpaced the five other special municipalities with a 16 percent increase, or 3,626 transactions, compared with the same period last year, Kaohsiung City Government data showed.
Taichung saw a 13 percent increase, to 4,141 deals, aided by completed construction on new residential complexes in the Beitun (北屯) and Situn (西屯) districts, city data showed.
Taoyuan’s market posted a solid increase of 9 percent from a year earlier, to 3667 deals, as residences in the Jhongli (中壢) and Bade (八德) districts gained popularity, local housing authorities said.
Transactions in New Taipei City rose 3 percent to 5,598 as construction on a new residential complex in Jhonghe District (中和) was completed.
Housing deals in Taipei grew 4 percent to 2,734 units, while Tainan saw a 1 percent gain to 2,216, city government data showed.
The housing market might improve this month, but lose some steam in the second half of the year as the presidential campaign heats up, creating political uncertainty, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) said.
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],”
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
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