■ China van venture formed
Taiwan's China Motor Corp (中華汽車), DaimlerChrysler AG from Germany and China's Fujian Motor Industrial Group (福汽集團) will form a joint venture making vans in China, a spokeswoman for the Taiwanese firm said yesterday. Fujian Motor will take a 50 percent stake in the new project, at Fuzhou in China's southeastern Fujian Province, while DaimlerChryler AG will share 33 percent and the Taiwan partner 17 percent, the spokeswoman said. "We expect the joint venture to be set up by the end of this year after obtaining approval from Chinese authorities," she said. DiamlerChrysler will provide production know-how for the joint venture, to be named DaimlerChrysler Vans (China), and the Taiwan firm will take charge of marketing, eyeing China and Southeast Asian countries, she added. The new company is scheduled to begin commercial production in early 2007 and reach its capacity of 40,000 units in 2013.
■ Third-quarter Hon Hai profits rise
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), Taiwan's largest electronics company, had a 40 percent rise in third-quarter profit on demand for game consoles and music players from customers such as Sony Corp and Apple Computer Inc.
Net income rose to NT$11.1 billion (US$330 million) from NT$7.9 billion a year earlier, according to figures derived by subtracting first-half earnings from nine-month numbers provided by the company to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday. Demand for Sony's video-game player and Apple's iPod fueled sales of component and assembly provider Hon Hai, according to Kirk Yang (楊應超), an analyst at Citigroup Inc. The iPod is the best-selling music player in the US, according to researcher NPD Group Inc. Sony this month raised its full-year shipment forecast for game players by 7.7 percent.
■ Quanta posts profit gain
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), the world's largest maker of notebook computers, posted its first profit gain in six quarters as sales increased. Third-quarter net income rose 10 percent to NT$3.4 billion (US$101 million), from NT$3.1 billion a year earlier, the figures were derived by Bloomberg by subtracting the six-month profit from the computer maker's nine-month earnings that announced yesterday. Sales at Quanta Computer rose 32 percent to NT$104 billion in the third quarter, from NT$78.9 billion a year earlier, according to the company's monthly releases.
■ CAL profits fall
China Airlines (華航), Taiwan's largest carrier, said yesterday its net profit in the nine months to September fell 70.2 percent from a year earlier, reflecting soaring global oil prices. Net profit for the period was NT$1.01 billion (US$30.05 million), compared with NT$3.39 billion a year earlier. In the nine months, sales of China Airlines rose 12.8 percent to NT$79.02 billion from NT$70.05 billion a year earlier. The soaring fuel prices also battered another local carrier EVA Airways (長榮航空), which said yesterday that its net profit in the January-September period fell 48.7 percent from a year earlier to NT$1.37 billion (US$40.77 million). Sales in the nine months, however, rose 6.97 percent from a year earlier to NT$64.29 billion dollars, the airliner said. "EVA Airways was no exception under fuel price impact," a company spokesman said.
■ NT dollar advances
The New Taiwan dollar advanced against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.055 to close at NT$33.551. A total of US$587 million changed hands during the day's trading.
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