No new taxes
The Cabinet has promised not to levy any new taxes amid the current domestic economic downturn, a business leader said yesterday.
"Vice Premier Lin Hsin-yi (林信義) offered the promise during a breakfast meeting with representatives from the local business community earlier in the day," said Huang Mao-hsiung (黃茂雄), chairman of the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce, one of the three leading domestic trade associations.
Lin was quoted as having told all those present at the meeting that the government is fully aware of the present economic woes and will not propose any new taxes at this critical juncture in Taiwan's development.
However, Lin rejected a proposal from the businessmen to lower the business income tax rate from the current 25 percent to 15 percent.
TSMC sales improve
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world's biggest supplier of made-to-order chips, said sales in October climbed by almost half from a year ago as Christmas-season demand increased.
Sales last month rose 48 percent to NT$15.2 billion (US$439 million) from NT$10.3 billion in the same period a year ago. They increased a fifth from NT$12.8 billion in the previous month.
The company's sales beat the NT$14.9 billion expectation of UBS Warburg analyst William Dong, who added that he expects TSMC's sales in November and December to fall from October levels.
Orders from companies in the personal-computer business have increased because inventories are low, he said.
TSMC said it raised its forecast for shipments of silicon wafers, which are used to make chips, in the fourth quarter. The company declined to give details.
In its third-quarter earnings announcement last month, TSMC said that wafer shipments will fall in the fourth quarter by a percentage in the ``low teens.''
Exports increase
Taiwan's exports rose 0.6 percent in October from a year ago to $US11.5 billion, from $US11.28 billion in September, official data showed yesterday.
The increase was lower than September's year-on-year growth of 27.4 percent, the finance ministry said.
Imports in October rose 5.0 percent from a year earlier to $US10.19 billion, after a 36.3 percent rise in the previous month, it said.
It said the trade surplus in October fell 24.3 percent from a year earlier to $US1.31 billion, compared with a 36.5 percent fall recorded in September.
NT dollar called overvalued
Taiwan should depreciate its currency to spur its exports, the legislative caucus of the opposition TSU said yesterday.
TSU Legislator Wu Tung-sheng (吳東昇) said at a news conference held by the party caucus that the NT dollar is overvalued in comparison with currencies of neighboring countries.
Over the past decade, Wu said, the South Korean won has depreciated about 78 percent against the US dollar, compared to a 74 percent depreciation of China's yuan and a 68 percent devaluation of the Thai baht.
During the same period, the NT dollar has depreciated only 33 percent against the US dollar.
"The figures indicate that the New Taiwan dollar is relatively strong after the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis," Wu said.
NT dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar closed at 34.596 against the greenback on the Taipei foreign exchange market Thursday, compared to 34.685 Wednesday on turnover of US$540 million.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
RSS