Evergreen Group (
"The report is misleading and caused a lot of trouble for us," Evergreen spokesman Nieh Kuo-wei (聶國維) said yesterday, referring to a newspaper report that said Lloyd Triestino di Navigazione SPA had received permission to open branches in China, making Evergreen the first Taiwanese-funded company to obtain such approval.
Evergreen Marine Corp (
Its shares gained NT$0.35, or 1.1 percent, to close at NT$31.40 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday.
`major breakthrough'
The report, citing Evergreen Marine president Arnold Wang (王龍雄), said that the approval was a "major breakthrough" for Evergreen in its attempt to make inroads into China, and would help the group integrate its logistics business there.
The paper also said that Evergreen can now save NT$700 million (US$22.2 million) per year since it will no longer need Chinese shipping companies to handle its shipments.
Nieh denied the report, saying that the "Operation of our Italian subsidiary did not change after gaining the approval, and the company has nothing to do with Evergreen Marine."
Instead, Nieh stressed that Lloyd Triestino, in which Evergreen holds a less than 50 percent stake, obtained the approval on March 30 last year and so established Lloyd Triestino (Shenzhen) Co.
He said that Lloyd Triestino (Shenzhen) still needs to work with Chinese logistics companies to collect and distribute shipments in accordance with Chinese regulations, and that the company has no plans to open a Shanghai branch as the report indicated.
ningbo deal
Despite its denial, Evergreen in January signed a deal with the Chinese city of Ningbo in Zhejiang Province to build a two-berth container terminal, according to a Jan. 20 report in the South China Morning Post.
The report said that the investment was being routed through its Italian shipping line, Lloyd Triestino, to avoid the sensitivity of direct investment in Chinese infrastructure projects.
Chinese authorities only allow Taiwanese logistics operators to set up representative offices in China for client liaison purposes and to collect market information.
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
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],”
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
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day