Opposition parties in the legislature yesterday cut the annual budget of the Cabinet's National Development Fund (
"Most of [the fund's] investments in high-tech start-ups are not worthwhile," People First Party legislator Norman Yin (
The budget cut is expected to negatively impact the Ministry of Finance's plan to relax restrictions on the nation's venture capitalists, who will be allowed to expand their business scope in the near future.
"We'll first discuss the budget cut's impact with the fund's committee before coming up with a proposal [to restore the budget]," Finance Minister Lin Chuan (
According to Vice Minister of Finance Yang Tze-kaing (
Currently, most of the nation's venture capitalists are bound by the Development Fund's (
However, the to-be-announced relaxation of the regulations will allow venture capitalists to invest in the service sector, Yang told a press conference late last month.
In addition, the ministry plans to sell its shares in blue-chip Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC,
Next year's share sale is expected to bring in revenues of NT$45 billion in total to the government coffers, Lin said in his report.
According to the ministry's estimates, the selling price of TSMC shares will be NT$71.
Meanwhile, the ministry yesterday finalized a new tax-cut proposal that lowers the transaction tax on futures contracts by up to 60 percent.
According to Lin, transaction tax rates on stock-index futures contracts (
Interest-rate futures contracts, to be launched next month, will be levied with a transaction tax of between NT$6 to NT$13 per contract.
"The tax-cut proposal aims to boost the development of futures markets, which may end up increasing tax revenue for the government if more contracts are made," Lin told a press conference late yesterday evening.
The new tax-cut proposal will immediately take effect after receiving approval from the Executive Yuan and the legislature.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by