EQUITIES
TAIEX closes little changed
The TAIEX closed little changed yesterday after an early 100-point plunge triggered by a poor showing by US markets overnight amid fears over an outbreak of COVID-19. The weighted index closed 5.36 points, or 0.05 percent, higher at 11,540.23 on turnover of NT$153.815 billion (US$5.06 billion). Foreign institutional investors sold a net NT$11.28 billion of shares after a net sale of NT$26.34 billion on Monday, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. “It seemed that the market got solid technical support at the 120-day moving average of about 11,439 points,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang (黃國偉) said.
REAL ESTATE
Housing loans rise further
Housing loans and lending to the construction sector continued to increase last month, monthly data released by the central bank showed yesterday. Housing loans grew 6.16 percent year-on-year to NT$7.43 trillion, the bank’s tallies showed. The figure increased slightly by 0.18 percent from the previous month due to the effect of the Lunar New Year holiday, the bank said. Construction loans grew 12.75 percent year-on-year to NT$2.1 trillion last month. The number rose by just 0.48 percent from the previous month because of seasonal factors, the bank said.
INVESTMENTS
Foreign investments passed
The Investment Commission on Monday approved Samoa-registered Good Flavor Alpha Ltd’s application to invest NT$478 million to finance a Taiwanese enterprise making bread and other baked goods. It also approved a Hong Kong company’s plan to invest NT$360 million in a Taiwanese maker of computer and peripheral equipment and medical devices, as well as another Hong Kong firm’s investment of NT$224 million in a local chemical producer. In terms of outbound investment, Taichung-based Johnson Health Tech Co (喬山健康科技) received approval to invest ¥6.24 billion (US$56.4 million) to buy a 60 percent stake in Fuji Medical Instruments Manufacturing Co, the commission said.
FINANCE
SBI leads CoolBitX funding
Japanese financial conglomerate SBI Holdings Inc is leading a group of investors participating in a Series B US$16.75 million funding round for CoolBitX (庫幣科技), a Taiwanese blockchain security company offering services to help crypto exchanges comply with more stringent international standards for collection of user information. Other participants in the fundraising include the National Development Fund, Japan’s Monex Group Inc and South Korean crypto exchange BitSonic, a CoolBitX press release said. SBI Holdings was among investors participating in the Series A US$13 million funding round in 2018, the company said.
PUBLISHING
‘Next Magazine’ closing
Taiwan’s version of the Chinese-language Next Magazine (壹週刊) is to cease online publication on Saturday, less than two years after closing its print edition and almost two decades after its launch. In a statement posted on its Web site last week, the publisher attributed the closure to a restructuring at its parent company, Hong Kong-based media conglomerate Next Digital Ltd (壹傳媒). The company said it would protect the rights of its employees, as well as subscribers, which would be given the choice of a cash refund or transferring their subscription to Taiwan’s Apple Daily Web site.
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