Taiwan will open its stock and futures markets to qualified direct institutional investors (QDIIs) from China later this year in a bid to attract more foreign investment to help prop up the nation’s financial markets, Vice Premier Paul Chiu (邱正雄) said yesterday.
The move is expected to lead to an influx of US$1.12 billion into the stock market in the first year, estimates from industry observers showed.
The scope of what Chinese QDIIs will be allowed to trade is expected to be announced in one or two months, Chiu said at a forum on a financial memorandums of understanding (MOU) across the Taiwan Strait and financial reform.
Meanwhile, Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) Chairman Sean Chen (陳冲) said at a legislative session that the commission, in collaboration with the central bank, would map out regulations to pave the way for Chinese QDIIs to invest in the nation’s financial markets, such as whether they will have the right to act as members of the board of directors or as supervisors.
After Taiwan and China sign MOUs on cooperation in the supervision of banking, securities and insurance, China is also expected to lift its cap on QDII investment in Taiwan from 3 percent to 10 percent of QDII funds, which is estimated to be approximately NT$30 billion.
If QDIIs buy shares in financial institutions, a cap on the size of the investment will be imposed by Taiwan, Chen 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],”
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
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