■ Tax revenues up 50%
Taxes funnelled into the national coffers last month totaled NT$71.1 billion (US$2.14 billion), up by 50.4 percent over the year-earlier level, the Ministry of Finance reported on Tuesday. Tax revenues generated by stock transaction deals reached NT$10.7 billion last month, a monthly high since February 2002 and representing a 2.7-fold rise compared to the previous year's record, which is also a new single-month high since March 2000, ministry officials said. They attributed the big jump in last month's stock transaction taxes to a bullish stock market as a result of recovering business conditions. In addition, land-value increment tax revenue also grew by NT$4.2 billion year-on-year to NT$7.5 billion last month thanks to a government policy that provides a 50 percent cutback in such taxes, income from which hit a record high of NT$10.05 billion last December. The policy of halving the land-value increment tax was originally to have expired in January, but the Legislative Yuan recently decided to extend it for another one year.
■ Cycle show opens in Taipei
The Taipei International Cycle Show opened yesterday at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibi-tion Hall, with a theme of "Think Bicycle, Think Taiwan." The four-day show is the largest of its kind in Asia, with as many as 1,828 booths. It is sponsored by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (外貿協會) and Taiwan Bicycle Exporters Association (台灣區自行車輸出業公會). The sponsors said that the show is the largest ever, with the largest-ever number of foreign exhibitors, including Shimano, Cat Eye, Accell, and Michelin. Local manufacturers such as Giant (捷安特) and Merida (美利達) are also displaying their wares, including tandem, folding, mountain and electric bicycles.
■ TSMC, Qualcomm to collaborate
Qualcomm Inc, the developer of code-division-multiple-access (CDMA) technology, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) announced yesterday they will collaborate on 90 nanometer low-power process for wireless applications has borne fruit. In a statement issued by the California-based Qualcomm, the ompanies said the planned delivery of Qualcomm's new wireless chipsets this year will use TSMC's 90nm low-power process technology. The new technology will greatly reduce mobile application power consumption, improve processor performance and enable the integration of more features onto a single chip, the statement said. TSMC's 90nm technology is deployed in its Fab 12 in Hsinchu, the industry's largest 300mm production facility. The new technology is also expected to be deployed in TSMC's Fab 14 in Tainan when the facility is ramped for production.
■ Hon Hai may sell HK phone unit
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) plans to sell shares in its Hong Kong mobile-phone manufacturing unit to city investors, probably in October, a Chinese-language newspaper said, citing chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘). No details of the issue or the amount the company hopes to raise were disclosed. Separately, Hon Hai Precision's unit InnoLux Display Corp (群創光電) yesterday signed a NT$20 billion syndicated loan with Chiao Tung Bank (交通銀行) and seven other lenders to invest in liquid-crystal-display production plants, the report said.
■ NT weakens
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday turned weak against its US counterpart, declining NT$0.057 to close at NT$33.384 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$844 million.
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last