BANKING
Yuan deposits still falling
Yuan deposits held by Taiwanese banks at the end of last month plunged to 241.17 billion yuan (US$34.49 billion), down about 5.201 billion yuan from the end of May and hitting a more than six-year low, the central bank said on Wednesday last week. The domestic banking units of local banks reported that yuan deposits fell 6.17 billion yuan from a month earlier to 208.26 billion, while yuan deposits at offshore banking units rose 966 million yuan from a month earlier to 32.92 billion at the end of last month.
HOSPITALITY
Farglory plans renovation
Farglory Hotel (遠雄悅來大飯店) in Hualien on Thursday announced plans to spend NT$250 million (US$8.45 million) to revamp its facilities over the next three years. The 18-year-old property with 400 guestrooms under the Farglory Group (遠雄集團) is to improve its entertainment features, restaurants, hotel rooms and other amenities in phases, the hotel said. It plans to add light shows, virtual reality games, a sports bar and an augmented rock climbing wall to help turn the hotel into the most popular resort in Hualien, it said.
OPTOELECTRONICS
Largan to expand production
Handset camera lens supplier Largan Precision Co (大立光) has remitted US$276 million to Taiwan to finance new production capacity. Largan on Tuesday said it remitted the funds through its Samoa-registered investment subsidiary Astro International Ltd, and its board approved using the funds to build new production lines and as a reserve for capital expenditure. It was Largan’s second large fund repatriation in seven months after the company in December last year remitted US$365 million, also to be used to expand its production capacity.
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