■ Chi Mei to expand in China
Chi Mei Corp (奇美) plans to expand its petrochemical plants in China, it was reported yesterday. The company will invest about US$100 million to expand its petrochemical plants at Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, to make inroads into China's domestic market, a Chinese-language newspaper quoted Chi Mei vice president Hsu Chun-hua (許春華) as saying. Chi Mei plans to start construction of a new ABS (acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) production line by the end of the year and have it operational 18 months later, Hsu said. The project will increase ABS capacity at Zhenjiang to 350,000 tonnes per year from 250,000 currently. ABS resin is widely used in making toys, furniture and casings of electrical appliances.
■ China to fix energy problem
China hopes to overcome its worst energy crisis in decades and have a surplus of electrical power by 2007, the Xinhua news agency reported yesterday. China installed 50 million kilowatts of new power capacity last year, Xinhua said, citing Wang Yonggan (王永幹), secretary-general of the Chinese Electricity Council. China will add 70 million kilowatts annually to the country's power grid over the next three years, Wang was quoted as saying on Monday. The targeted annual increase is four times the current capacity of Shanghai, which has about 17 million kilowatts. By 2007, China would have a total power capacity of 650 million kilowatts and would have balanced its supply and demand, Xinhua said.
■ EVA's cargo operations expand
The cargo transportation operation of EVA Airways (長榮航空) has expanded significantly since the carrier began cooperation with Shanghai Airlines (上海航空) two years ago on a Taipei-Shanghai cargo flight route via Macau, EVA officials said yesterday. With abundant cargo sources in Shanghai, EVA's Taipei-US cargo shipments have risen to account for 60 percent of the company's total cargo business, EVA officials said. According to the officials, the company's cargo aircraft takes over Shanghai Airlines deliveries in Macau, then transports them via Taipei to six major cities in the US.
■ First Financial may make bid
First Financial Holding Co (第一金控) is considering a bid for Taiwan Business Bank (台灣企銀), a Chinese-language daily said, citing unidentified senior officials at First Financial. First Financial said its board endorsed the chairman's bid to seek merger and acquisition opportunities, according to a statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange late Monday. There was no information about potential targets, according to the statement. Taiwan Business Bank said on July 27 that it started inviting bids from local and foreign investors as part of a government plan to speed up financial consolidation. Yesterday was the deadline for the first-round bid submission, the newspaper said.
■ NT dollar falls
The New Taiwan dollar fell against its US counterpart for a second day after a government report showed the nation's trade surplus declined, prompting speculation fund inflows from overseas will drop. The trade surplus in the first seven months of the year slumped 84 percent from a year earlier, the Ministry of Finance said Monday. "The narrowing trade surplus is weighing on the Taiwan dollar," said Joseph Lee, a trader at Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行). "Fund inflows may decrease." The NT dollar slid NT$0.014 to close at NT$31.963 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$679 million, down from US$1.03 billion the previous day.
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
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
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