China Steel Corp (
Under the alliance, Far Eastern will take a 35 percent stake in an e-commerce venture China Steel has already set up.
China Steel earlier this year invested NT$130 million to create an e-commerce company called Wang Ju You Shi (網際優勢). Far Eastern will inject an additional NT$45 million into the project. The Web company plans to increase its total capitalization to NT$500 million in the future.
"We are talking with many other local firms that have shown interest in investing in the new company," a China Steel official said yesterday.
The new enterprise will provide a way for manufacturing companies to do business over the Internet. According to C.Y. Wang (王鍾渝), chairman of China Steel, Far Eastern Group's major businesses include textiles, cement, banking, retail and telecommunications. China Steel and Far Eastern Group's businesses together will account for a considerable portion of transactions conducted through the new e-commerce venture.
"The total annual purchases and sales of the two corporations amount to NT$500 billion. This alliance ensures a large customer base for Wang Ju You Shi," Wang said.
"China Steel and Far Eastern are among the few local companies that employ the ERP [Enterprise Resource Planning] system," said Douglas Hsu (
China Steel's chairman noted that now is a good time to get into e-commerce because the number of Internet users is rapidly increasing and the technology is quite mature.
According to statistics provided by China Steel, the business-to-business market will reach US$403 billion this year and US$2 trillion by 2002.
According to Laing Chong-chun (
In addition, due to Taiwan's high population density, a focus on consumers is not needed, as customer convenience is less of a problem in Taiwan.
On the otherhand, greater business-to-business integration would be of great value.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
STILL LOADED: Last year’s richest person, Quanta Computer Inc chairman Barry Lam, dropped to second place despite an 8 percent increase in his wealth to US$12.6 billion Staff writer, with CNA Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and Richard Tsai (蔡明興), the brothers who run Fubon Group (富邦集團), topped the Forbes list of Taiwan’s 50 richest people this year, released on Wednesday in New York. The magazine said that a stronger New Taiwan dollar pushed the combined wealth of Taiwan’s 50 richest people up 13 percent, from US$174 billion to US$197 billion, with 36 of the people on the list seeing their wealth increase. That came as Taiwan’s economy grew 4.6 percent last year, its fastest pace in three years, driven by the strong performance of the semiconductor industry, the magazine said. The Tsai
RSS