Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, the world's biggest consumer-electronics maker, shut down a Beijing factory line. Quanta Computer Inc (
The computer and electronics industries that have come to rely on production in China are beginning to feel the effects of a disease that's already infected more than 2,000 people on the mainland and shows no signs of containment.
"The SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome] situation in China is getting worse," said Eddie Chiu, who manages the US$115 million the Hitech Fund at First Global Investment Trust Co (
Matsushita, the maker of Panasonic brand products, halted an inspection line for a day after the husband of a worker came into contact with someone infected with the deadly respiratory disease, spokesman Yoshihiro Matsukawa said. The worker was quarantined and 100 workers were sent home.
The spread of SARS in Asia, which has more than 95 percent of the world's cases, is also hindering contacts with clients and with interoffice travel.
Quanta said it's banned visits between its factory in Taiwan and its two plants in China, which make notebook computers for Hewlett-Packard Co and other customers.
China and Taiwan are home to about 60 percent of the world's suppliers of notebook PCs and 80 percent of motherboard makers.
"A full-blown worldwide outbreak could curb trade and consumption to the degree that the world economy would crash," Quanta spokesman Tim Li (
Hong Kong and China alone account for more than four-fifths of reported worldwide cases and deaths from SARS.
Taiwan, which has moved much of its manufacturing to China to take advantage of low-cost labor and the world's fastest-growing major economy, has reported 29 cases and a possible first death from disease. On the mainland, SARS has spread to more than half of all provinces.
"The concern is that if one person gets SARS, it could spread quickly," said Richard Chu, an analyst at ING Securities Japan Ltd. "It's up to individual companies to make sure that people infected with SARS don't come to their plants."
Companies are taking precautions. Sony China, in addition to canceling internal meetings, is handing out face masks and mouthwash to employees in China plants, spokesman Guo Yu said.
Sony Ericsson spokesman Michael Ning said employees at the company's two handset factories in Beijing are encouraged to wear face masks and avoid travel.
Motorola Inc closed the night shift at a Singapore cellphone factory for one day when one of its employees became ill, and more than 300 workers on the shift had to be quarantined until April 4. The plant has resumed normal operation in the third worst-infected country in the world.
Earlier this month, Russell Craig, an analyst with Aberdeen Group, a technology consultancy, said electronics companies face a "nuclear winter" if SARS were to halt all travel links. A Chinese-language newspaper in Taiwan said yesterday that the spread of the disease threatens to slow the introduction of new Christmas-season desktop computers because international buyers are canceling quality-control visits to China-based factories.
Sony, the world's second-largest consumer-electronics maker, was forced to disinfect its offices in Hong Kong after a worker at its sales subsidiary there was found to have come down with the disease, spokesman Yusho Shichijo said.
The company, maker of the PlayStation2 video-game console, also began disinfecting offices in China, Singapore and Vietnam for fear its 1,000 workers in those countries may come in contact with the killer virus.
Elsewhere in Asia, Shanghai-based Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (中芯國際集成電路), which makes chips for Infineon Technologies AG and Toshiba Corp, is scrubbing down its facilities and requiring visitors to its Shanghai assembly site to fill out questionnaires inquiring about recent travel to Guangdong province, Beijing or other infected places, spokeswoman Sarina Huang said. Shanghai has reported only two SARS cases.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group