Fix trade imbalance: Chen
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) said yesterday that Taiwan's imbalance between technology imports and exports must be addressed if the country intends to maintain its international competitiveness.
During an inspection tour of the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Hsinchu, Chen said that the ratio of technology imports to exports stood at 1 to 0.25 between 1997 and 2002, meaning that when Taiwan exported NT$1 worth of technology, it imported NT$4 worth of similar products at the same time.
Amid fierce competition worldwide in a time of knowledge-based economies, the nation must strive to turn its deficit in technology imports to surpluses in the way that it turned its overall trade deficit into a surplus over the past several decades to secure its competitive edge in the new "global race" in the 21st century, Chen said.
Steady growth expected
The economy will expand "steadily" this year as the government sticks to its forecast for 4.21 percent economic growth, central bank Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) said yesterday.
The nation's consumer prices rose 1.2 percent from a year earlier in the first two months of this year. The central bank earlier said inflation may exceed the government's 1.7 percent projection this year. The agency will take necessary measures to maintain "stable" prices and "financial stability," Perng said today before a legislative finance committee meeting.
Acer names two separate heads
Acer Inc, the world's fifth-biggest computer supplier by shipments, yesterday named separate chiefs for China and Taiwan, which previously were overseen by the same executive.
Lay Tai-yueh (賴泰岳) will oversee China operations, while Scott Lin (林顯郎) will be in charge of Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taipei-based company said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. Acer previously grouped China, Taiwan and Hong Kong into a "Greater China" region.
The personnel changes are aimed at boosting revenue in the Chinese market and reinforcing the company's "foothold in the home market," Acer said.
Firms may enter partnership
China's TCL Corp may form a LCD-panel molding venture with Taiwanese companies Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管) and TPV Technology Ltd (冠捷科技), a Chinese-language newspaper reported, without saying where it obtained the information.
TCL chairman Tomson Li (李東生) is currently on a visit to Taiwan, where venture talks may be under way, the Taipei-based newspaper reported.
TCL owns the world's largest television maker in partnership with France's Thomson SA. Chunghwa Picture Tubes is Taiwan's third largest flat-panel display maker. TPV Technology, a Taiwanese company that lists its shares in Hong Kong, is the world's second-largest maker of cathode-ray tube computer monitors.
AU head to lead Wellypower
AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) president Chen Hsuan-bin (陳炫彬) is set to become chairman of Wellypower Optronics Corp (威力盟電子) today after his company bought a 12 percent stake in the maker of fluorescent lamps for liquid-crystal display panels, a Chinese-language business daily reported, without saying where it obtained the information.
AU Optronics also will get two board seats at Wellypower, which has 10 production lines in Taiwan and two in China, the newspaper said. The timing and cost of the stake were not disclosed.
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
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
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