Taiwan was rated as presenting the fifth-lowest investment risk among 50 nations surveyed by Business Environment Risk Intelligence (BERI) SA last month, the Industrial Development and Investment Center announced yesterday.
Taiwan shared the fifth place with Norway, following Switzerland, Singapore, the Netherlands and Japan, on the Profit Opportunity Recommendation (POE) scale, which combines three evaluation elements: a political risk index, an operations risk index and a remittance and repatriation factor.
Taiwan scored 72 and was awarded the POE's highest level of 1A in BERI's second business risk service report this year.
"The survey could help offer interested international traders and foreign enterprises insights and references to the nation's sound investment environment," an Industrial Development and Investment Center official surnamed Lee said.
Lee said that although the nation received decent ratings in both the operations and remittance indices, its performance in the political risk index was less than ideal as a result of China's missile threat.
Taiwan's ranking in the latest political risk index dropped to 13th place from 12th in the April survey. The nation's rating on this scale was at its highest point of fourth place in 1996, which dropped to its record low of 16th place in 2000.
BERI said it expected Taiwan's rating to advance to the fourth place with marks of 73 next year and a fifth-place ranking with score of 74 in 2009, citing stable foreign exchange performance, steady operations circumstances and decreasing political risks.
The rating firm conducts the poll three times a year, in April, August and December, and combines the results for annual ratings of countries surveyed.
Taiwan retained the same overall ranking as in the April survey, but fell from the fourth place last year.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”