■ China imposes phenol tariffs
China has begun imposing punitive tariffs of up to 144 percent on phenol imports from Japan, the US, South Korea and Taiwan because these products have been sold at below cost in the country, the Ministry of Commerce said.
Phenol is used to make adhesives and plastics.
China will impose tariffs on phenol imports from the four countries to protect domestic makers of the chemical, the ministry said in a statement. The tariffs, enforced at a minimum of 3 percent, took effect yesterday and will last for five years.
■ Chi Mei doubles sales
Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子), the nation's second-largest maker of flat-panel displays used in computers and televisions, had a third straight quarter of profit as sales doubled on higher prices.
The company had net income of NT$4.8 billion for the fourth quarter, compared with a net loss of NT$608 million a year ago. The latest figure was derived by subtracting audited nine-month numbers from the full-year unaudited number that the company released.
Sales, reported monthly, rose to NT$21.3 billion from NT$10.1 billion in the previous period. Prices of flat-panel displays rose by as much as a third from a year earlier.
Last year, Chi Mei's profit rose to NT$7.1 billion from NT$4.5 billion in 2002. Sales rose by more than half to NT$62 billion from NT$40.7 billion.
■ Chip packager posts profit
Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (日月光半導體), the world's No. 2 chip packager, had a third straight quarter of profit as sales climbed by two-fifths.
Net income was NT$2.1 billion (US$63 million), or NT$.61 per share, for the fourth quarter. That compares to a net loss of NT$28.9 million, or NT$.01, a year ago, the Kaohsiung-based company said.
Sales rose to NT$100.4 billion from NT$71.8 billion.
"We were able to capitalize on particularly robust demand for high-end capacity from wireless communications customers," said chairman Jason Chang (張虔生).
"Demand for our services was strong across our entire customer base," Chang said.
Advanced counts among its larger customers Motorola Inc, Qualcomm Inc, Agilent Technologies and Conexant Systems Inc.
Advanced Semiconductor plans to buy a computer-chip assembly plant from NEC Corp, a Chinese-language newspaper reported today, without citing the source of its information.
The company will announce Tuesday that it will pay US$80 million to buy the plant from NEC, the Chinese-language newspaper reported.
■ Hon Hai denies HK report
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the nation's largest company by sales, denied a Chinese-language newspaper report that it will consider a plan to combine holdings in 15 mobile-phone related companies for a Hong Kong listing.
"At present, there is no concrete plan or timetable to list shares in Hong Kong," the company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp.
No bank has been hired to help manage a share sale, Hon Hai added.
The rumored plan would have allowed Hon Hai employees to take a stake in one of the company's most profitable businesses, where sales last year reached about NT$30 billion, the report said.
■ NT dollar higher
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded higher against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.057 to close at NT$33.33 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$653 million.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained