China Steel Corp (
The two companies are evaluating building a plant in China to make steel plates used in automobiles, a Chinese-language newspaper reported yesterday in Taipei. The two may invest more than NT$5 billion (US$148 million) in the mill with an annual production capacity of at least 300,000 tonnes, the report said.
"We have cooperated rather well and we have all along been looking at ways to extend that partnership,'' said China Steel executive vice president Chen Yuan-cheng (
"We haven't ruled out investing in China," he said.
Chen declined to elaborate and said the companies have no timetable for a venture.
China Steel last year paid 10 billion yen (US$91 million) for a one-third stake in a unit of Sumitomo, becoming the first overseas partner in a Japanese crude-steel plant. The tie-up helped the Taiwanese steelmaker secure a source of steel slab supply.
The steelmaker may raise its official profit forecast for this year, which would require approval at the company's June 25 board meeting, Chen said, without giving specific figures.
China Steel may post a pretax profit for this year of as much as NT$60 billion (US$1.8 billion), higher than the company's earlier forecast, a Chinese-language newspaper said on Thursday, citing chairman Lin Wen-yuan (林文淵).
The steelmaker in December forecast a pretax profit of NT$42 billion for this year and net income of NT$33 billion.
"Based on the current demand outlook, there is a potential to raise prices again in the fourth quarter," Chen said. "The increases in product prices exceed the gains in raw material costs expected earlier."
China Steel shares closed unchanged at NT$30.10 yesterday. The stock rose 6.7 percent this year, compared with a 5.5 percent decline in the main TAIEX.
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Huawei Technologies Co’s (華為) latest smartphones carry a version of the advanced made-in-China processor it revealed last year, results from an independent analysis showed. This underscored the Chinese company’s ability to sustain production of the controversial chip. The Pura 70 series unveiled last week sports the Kirin 9010 processor, research firm TechInsights found during a teardown of the device. This is a newer version of the Kirin 9000s, made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) for the Mate 60 Pro, which had alarmed officials in Washington who thought a 7-nanometer chip was beyond China’s capabilities. Huawei has enjoyed a resurgence since
purpose: Tesla’s CEO sought to meet senior Chinese officials to discuss the rollout of its ‘full self-driving’ software in China and approval to transfer data they had collected Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk arrived in Beijing yesterday on an unannounced visit, where he is expected to meet senior officials to discuss the rollout of "full self-driving" (FSD) software and permission to transfer data overseas, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Chinese state media reported that he met Premier Li Qiang (李強) in Beijing, during which Li told Musk that Tesla's development in China could be regarded as a successful example of US-China economic and trade cooperation. Musk confirmed his meeting with the premier yesterday with a post on social media platform X. "Honored to meet with Premier Li