The Tai-Ex opened down 81-points this morning from yesterday's close, at

19,798 on turnover of 6.7-billion N-T.

The market staged a technical rebound on Monday to close the trading day up

197-points on the back of investor interest in Taiwan Semiconductor

Manufacturing - which returned to its prior ex-dividend level shortly after

the market opened.

Vice Premier Cheng Wen-tsan has announced that Taiwan Semiconductor

Manufacturing will build two advanced I-C packaging plants in Chiayi County.

According to the Vice Premier, T-S-M-C's first -IC packaging plant using the

sophisticated Chip on Wafer on Substrate technology in Chiayi is scheduled to

break ground in May.

Construction of the first Chiayi plant is expected to be completed by the end

of 2026 with mass production scheduled to begin in 2028.

T-S-M-C says the Chiayi investments seek to meet strong growing market demand

for sophisticated (精密的，複雜的) I-C packaging services for chips related

to artificial intelligence applications.

Group

Lawmakers from across party lines have established a new parliamentary

friendship group for the Czech Republic and Austria.

The group is a reorganization of the parliamentary friendship group for

Czechia, which was established during the previous (以前的) Legislature.

The newly formed group covering the two European countries is headed K-M-T

lawmaker Wan Mei-ling and includes 11 other lawmakers as vice-chairs - who

come from the K-M-T, the D-P-P and the Taiwan People's Party.

According to Wan, some 50 members of the Legislature have so far joined the

group, and more expected to join in the coming weeks.

Deputy Foreign Minister Tien Chong-guang is thanking lawmakers for their

efforts to promote friendship with their foreign counterparts - saying

friendship group could help his office boost practical collaborations and

interactions with the two countries.

The Bank of Japan is widely expected to end negative interest rates when a

two day policy meeting concludes today.

Analysts believe record wage hikes recently announced by large companies have

created the conditions the bank needs to begin phasing out (逐步廢除)

quantitive easing.

Chris Gilbert reports from Japan.

A new Banksy mural has drawn crowds to a London street.

The artwork in the Finsbury Park neighborhood covers the wall of a four-story

building and shows a small figure holding a pressure hose beside a large

cherry tree.

Banksy claimed the work by posting before and after photos on his official

Instagram account.

The new attraction drew on Monday a stream of onlookers (圍觀者) who took

photos and snapped selfies.

Many discerned an environmental message in the vibrant green artwork, which

appeared on St. Patrick’s Day.

That was the I.C.R.T. news,

Check in again tomorrow for our simplified version of the news, uploaded

every day in the afternoon.

Enjoy the rest of your day, I'm _____.

--

Hosting provided by SoundOn