CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) yesterday announced that they would increase gasoline and diesel prices by NT$0.3 per liter this week, after raising them by NT$0.2 per liter last week.
CPC said the price hikes reflect higher global crude oil prices, which rose last week after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday said that he expects Washington’s sanctions on Tehran to remain in place, even if the US and Iran were to return to a nuclear deal, decreasing the possibility of Iran boosting its crude exports.
Oil prices also moved higher as summer is the high season for demand in the northern hemisphere, the state-run refiner said in a statement.
The number of initial claims for unemployment benefits in the US dropped for the sixth consecutive week last week, which supported oil prices, Formosa said in a separate statement.
Gasoline prices at CPC stations would rise to NT$27.5, NT$29.0 and NT$31.0 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, while the price of premium diesel would increase to NT$24.7 per liter, the company said.
Privately owned Formosa said that prices at its stations would rise to NT$27.5, NT$29.1 and NT$31.0 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, while the price of premium diesel would rise to NT$24.5 per liter.
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],”
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
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