The Taipei 101 shopping mall last month saw its business return to positive territory, thanks to a sharp increase in the number of domestic shoppers as well as the government-issued Triple Stimulus Vouchers.
Revenue picked up mildly last month, reversing months of decline, after Taiwanese regained confidence about shopping, the mall said on Tuesday.
Foreign tourists accounted for 30 percent of the mall’s revenue as COVID-19-related border controls wreaked havoc on its operations, it said.
Photo: Bloomberg / I-Hwa Cheng
The mall is one of the three main revenue sources for Taipei Financial Center Corp (台北金融大樓, TFCC), the operator of Taipei 101, together with admission fees to the observatory and the observation deck, as well as rental income from its office spaces.
Apart from recovered confidence, a jewel exhibition and the vouchers helped motivate shoppers, the mall said.
The World Masterpiece show last month helped boost expensive jewel and watch sales 40 percent from the same period last year, with one particular brand reporting more than twofold revenue growth, the mall said.
The shopping momentum might sustain this month, as affluent Taiwanese who are used to spending their summer vacation abroad would spend their time in the nation, it said.
Taiwan Ratings (中華信評), the local arm of S&P Global Ratings and a Taipei 101 tenant, had earlier downgraded its credit outlook for TFCC from “stable” to “negative,” citing concerns over a slump in tourists and shoppers.
Retail sales at the mall are forecast to drop by 31 to 35 percent this year as luxury and fashion consumption is discretionary and therefore vulnerable to economic shocks, it said.
The lack of foreign tourists would also curb observatory revenue, but rental income remains resilient amid stable leasing demand and rental rates, it added.
Separately, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said that 20.54 million people, or about 85 percent of the 24 million Taiwanese and foreign spouses eligible to receive the vouchers, had claimed their vouchers as of Tuesday.
Local businesses had redeemed NT$1.34 billion of stimulus vouchers for cash from banks as of Monday, the ministry said in a Facebook post.
Additional reporting by Angelica Oung
RETAIL BANKING EXIT: Clients are concerned whether their rights would be protected, while employees were caught by surprise as the bank had just upgraded its services Citibank Taiwan Ltd (花旗台灣) yesterday said that credit card clients could continue using their cards as operations would continue normally until it sells its consumer banking business. As of February, the bank had 2.86 million credit cards in circulation in Taiwan, of which 2.17 million had been used in the past six months, ranking it sixth among all banks, data from the Financial Supervisory Commission showed. Credit card spending by Citibank clients totaled NT$15.66 billion (US$552.6 million) in February, also ranking sixth among banks in Taiwan. Citibank was the only foreign bank that made it into the top six. Customers should not
NO MONEY LAUNDERING: Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Lin Chih-chi said transactions of more than NT$500,000 conducted in cash would need to be reported The Financial Supervisory Commission is to set up new money laundering regulations for the nation’s cryptocurrency exchanges from July 1, requiring them to report transactions valued at more than NT$500,000 (US$17,770), the commission said yesterday. The move came after the Executive Yuan earlier this month demanded that the commission establish regulations to prevent money laundering in the cryptocurrency industry. The cryptocurrency industry includes local trading platforms for cryptocurrencies, cryptocurrency wallet providers and firms that conduct security token offerings, the Executive Yuan said. The commission plans to require cryptocurrency exchanges to report any transaction of more than NT$500,000 conducted in cash, or an equivalent
PANDEMIC EFFECT: Chromebook shipments in the first quarter more than tripled from a year earlier, driven primarily by educational institutions in North America Despite a semiconductor shortage, global PC shipments in the first quarter of this year increased 32 percent from a year earlier, preliminary data from research firm Gartner Inc showed. Shipments in the January-to-March period totaled 69.87 million units from 52.93 million units a year earlier, Gartner said in a report on Monday last week. The quarterly increase in shipments marked the fastest annual growth since it began tracking the PC market in 2000, Gartner said. “This growth should be viewed in the context of two unique factors: comparisons against a pandemic-constrained market and the current global semiconductor shortage,” Gartner research director Mikako Kitagawa
TREASURY REPORT: A US government report urging the central bank to curtail its foreign-exchange intervention, coupled with soaring exports, might lift the NT dollar The New Taiwan dollar yesterday posted its biggest daily advance since December last year after a report by the US Department of the Treasury last week hinted that US President Joe Biden’s administration could exert greater pressure on Taiwan’s central bank to allow the local currency to appreciate. The NT dollar rose 0.5 percent to close at NT$28.205 against the greenback, and was emerging Asia’s best-performing currency for the day. While the Treasury report on Friday did not label Taiwan as a currency manipulator, it said the US would initiate “enhanced bilateral engagement” to address what it considers as “structural undervaluation”
RSS