Hsieh accepts `shit' resignation
Premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said yesterday that he has approved the resignation of Steve Shieh (謝壽夫), chairman of First Financial Holding Co (第一金控), while there has been no decision yet as to Shieh's successor.
Hsieh made the remark while fielding a question by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker Lee Sen-zong (李顯榮) during a legislative answer-and-question session.
Shieh offered to step down after a controversy erupted when he used the English expletive "shit" during a heated exchange with another KMT lawmaker, Alex Fei (費鴻泰) last Thursday.
LCDs to replace old TVs
Shipments of liquid-crystal-display (LCD) televisions are expected to expand rapidly to 46.8 million units in 2008 from an estimate of 8.8 million in 2004 on the road to replace traditional cathode-ray-tub (CRT) sets, market researcher DisplaySearch projected yesterday.
In 2008, sleek LCD TVs will account for about a quarter of overall 213.1 million TV sets shipped. Last year, the more expensive TV sets merely made up a small 5 percent of the total TV market.
During the four-year period, shipments of boxy CRT TVs will continue to fall to around 145.7 million units from 164.8 million in 2004. Penetration rate will drop to 68 percent from 90 percent.
Global TV shipments are expected to increase at a 4 percent composite average annual rate to 213.1 million units in 2008, from 181.9 million units in 2004.
Teco lost NT$400 million
Teco Electric & Machinery Co (東元電機), a leading television vendor in Taiwan, said yesterday that it swung into losses of NT$400 million last year resulting from NT$800 million in asset impairment.
The result came as Teco board decided on an early adoption of stricter accounting rules. The rules, Financial Accounting Standard 35, require local companies to post 2005 financial results by restating their idled assets, or goodwill from mergers.
Teco previously said it would earn NT$390 million last year.
Hynix may partner Taiwan
Hynix Semiconductor Inc of South Korea may partner Taiwan companies such as Power Quotient International Co (勁永國際) to boost its NAND flash memory business.
Power Quotient Chairwoman Jance Lu (呂美月) said the company is in talks with an international memory chipmaker to form a strategic partnership and denied that the negotiating party was Hynix.
Shares of Power Quotient, which makes computer memory modules and flash memory storage deveices, have been restricted to cash transaction only on March 18 by the Taiwan Stock Exchange, amid allegations the company inflated revenue figures for last year.
Screen sales fail expectations
Sales of organic screens used in mobile phones and MP3 players are failing to meet projections amid a slow increase in production, researcher ISuppli Corp said.
Sales of organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, displays will rise 51 percent to US$615 million this year. That's 20 percent less than its industry projection six months ago. Shipments are poised to jump 92 percent to 60 million units, which would be 13 percent less than a September projection.
"It is clear at this point that (OLED) manufacturing is ramping up slowly," said Kimberly Allen, the author of ISuppli's latest semiannual report on the industry.
NT trades lower
The New Taiwan dollar traded lower yesterday against its US counterpart, declining NT$0.054 to close at NT$31.609 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$573 million.
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
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