Businesses are digging deep into their corporate pockets to fund contingency plans against severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
"Core Pacific City Mall (京華城) has spent over NT$3 million to install two infrared-heat scanners in the mall to ensure a virus-free environment for shoppers," the mall's president George Hou (侯英堯) said yesterday at a press conference.
In addition to disinfecting buildings, Core Pacific also enhanced its air-conditioning system to recycle air three times a day.
According to public relations manager, Alison Kao (
Hou expressed hope that the government would allow businesses to deduct the added expenses from their year-end tax bill.
Customer traffic in Core Pacific saw a sharp 35 percent decline since the outbreak of the disease, but has recently recovered after the mall initiated the safety measures, including temperature tests to prevent the entry of sick shoppers.
A survey conducted by the 1111 Job Bank (1111 人力銀行) yesterday found that nearly 93 percent of polled companies have implemented contingency plans to deal with the disease, including disinfecting work places.
"Thanks to SARS, companies are spending tens of millions of dollars to start their contingency plans," the job bank's spokesman Wayne Shiah (
But that may be a small price to pay for electronics makers, who could suffer losses of over NT$10 million in a single day if they had to shut down their factories to disinfect.
For example, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) -- the nation's largest computer-parts maker -- "spent over 1 million yuan [NT$4.2 million] so far to implement SARS prevention plans for its China-based factories which have over 50,000 employees in addition to its Taipei-based headquarters," according to company spokesman, Edmund Ding (丁祁安).
Hon Hai's plans include regular plant disinfection, employee health checkups weekly and rewards of between 20,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan offered to individuals who report to company authorities when they suspect they may be ill from SARS.
The job bank's survey found that over 40 percent of polled companies experienced revenue drops in the past two months. Among the companies, 40 percent saw a 10 to 20 percent revenue decline and 24 percent saw a 20 to 30 percent decline. A total of 13 percent of respondents said their businesses had declined by 30 to 50 percent.
The telephone survey questioned some 800 listed companies, of which 460 responded.
Nearly 60 percent of the survey's respondents said that the disease might cool "China fever" and nearly 50 percent believed the disease only posed a short-time shock to China-bound investments, while 37 percent insist that they will branch into China regardless of the SARS epidemic there.
The disease has also hit the recreation sector since the government has urged the public to avoid frequenting public places, including gyms.
According to Veronique Chiu (
To attract gym-goers, the group plans to spend NT$2.75 million on not only masks and thermometers, but also complimentary herbal tea and sea salt, which they claim can enhance health.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to