Science park weathers typhoon
Operations at the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park (新竹科學園區) proceeded smoothly yesterday, despite heavy downpours brought by Typhoon Rananim, a park administration official said.
Yen Tsung-ming (顏宗明), deputy director of the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park Administration, said that operations remained normal and that no incidents were reported, despite the fact that more than 300mm of rain fell in the Hsinchu area on Wednesday.
Yen claimed that companies based at the park will not be troubled by water shortages in the short term thanks to the rainfall brought by the typhoon.
The park is Taiwan's flagship high-tech facility and is widely viewed as the country's "Silicon Valley."
Major reservoirs in Hsinchu County and neighboring Taoyuan County have taken in large amounts of water.
The Paoshan and Yunghoshan reservoirs now hold more than 90 percent of their capacities.
ProMOS elects new chairman
The board of ProMOS Techno-logies Inc (茂德科技), the nation's leading producer of computer memory chips, yesterday elected its current vice chairman, Chen Liang-min (陳良民), to take over from outgoing chairman Hu Hung-chiu (胡洪九), the company said in a statement submitted to the Taiwan Stock Exchange Corp.
Hu, who also chairs ProMOS' parent company, Mosel Vitelic Inc (茂矽), offered his resignation at ProMOS amid an investigation about the alleged embezzlement of more than NT$10 billion from Pacific Electric Wire and Cable Co (太平洋電線電纜).
Hu served as a chief financial officer at Pacific Electric between 1988 and 1998.
Keelung harbor ups its tonnage
Keelung harbor handled 8.5 million tonnes of cargo last month, an increase of 6 percent over the same month last year, according to statistics compiled by the Kee-lung Harbor Bureau.
The port handled a total of 178,172 twenty-foot-equivalent unit (TEU) containers, an annual growth of 6.03 percent.
Of these, 81,823 TEUs were for imports, while 76,905 were for exports.
Transshipments amounted to 19,444 TEUs.
In July, outbound and inbound ships made a total of 856 visits to Keelung, an increase of 3.38 percent over the same month last year.
In the first seven months of this year, Keelung harbor dealt with 57.37 million tonnes of cargo, representing a growth of 9.03 percent over the same period last year.
The port handled 1.21 million TEUs from January to July, representing a rise of 6.98 percent over the same period last year.
Inbound and outbound ships made a total of 5,715 visits during the first seven months of the year.
Yulon Motor plans buyback
Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車), which makes Nissan Motor Co cars in Taiwan, said it plans to buy as many as 30 million of its shares in the next two months.
Yulon Motor may pay as much as NT$35 a share, a 19 percent premium to the stock's closing price of NT$29.30 yesterday, the company said in a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The stock has fallen 27 percent this year, compared with an 8.9 percent decline in the TAIEX.
NT dollar unchanged
The New Taiwan dollar remained unchanged at NT$34.140 against its US counterpart on the Taipei foreign exchange market yesterday.
The turnover stood at US$429 million.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last week recorded an increase in the number of shareholders to the highest in almost eight months, despite its share price falling 3.38 percent from the previous week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data released on Saturday showed. As of Friday, TSMC had 1.88 million shareholders, the most since the week of April 25 and an increase of 31,870 from the previous week, the data showed. The number of shareholders jumped despite a drop of NT$50 (US$1.59), or 3.38 percent, in TSMC’s share price from a week earlier to NT$1,430, as investors took profits from their earlier gains
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
INFLATION CONSIDERATION: The BOJ governor said that it would ‘keep making appropriate decisions’ and would adjust depending on the economy and prices The Bank of Japan (BOJ) yesterday raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest in 30 years and said more increases are in the pipeline if conditions allow, in a sign of growing conviction that it can attain the stable inflation target it has pursued for more than a decade. Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda’s policy board increased the rate by 0.2 percentage points to 0.75 percent, in a unanimous decision, the bank said in a statement. The central bank cited the rising likelihood of its economic outlook being realized. The rate change was expected by all 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The