■ Shares follow Wall Street higher
Share prices closed 1.06 percent higher yesterday, supported by further gains on Wall Street and foreign investor interest in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), dealers said. They said TSMC and rival United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) managed a bounce after coming under pressure Tuesday on news of an Intel-Micron Technology tie-up in the booming flash memory chip market. The TAIEX rose 64.33 points to 6,123.52, the high for the day, on turnover of NT$77.48 billion (US$2.30 billion). TSMC closed up NT$1.70 at NT$59.70 and UMC added NT$0.70 at NT$18.85.
■ Taiwanese funds in HK soaring
Taiwanese companies are expected to raise HK$12 billion (US$1.55 billion) of funds in Hong Kong in the next two years, seeking to meet the capital requirements of their Chinese operations, a Taiwanese securities firm said yesterday. The figure will mark a 45 percent increase from the funds raised by Taiwan companies in the city last year and this year. The number of Taiwanese companies listed in Hong Kong will probably increase by one-third to 54 at the end of 2007, said Terence Hong, managing director of Barits Hong Kong, a unit of Taipei-based Mega Financial Group (兆豐). By the second quarter of this year, 455 Taiwan-listed electronic companies had established factories in China. Taiwanese investments in China had surged 7.7 times to HK$81.4 billion from five years ago by the second quarter, Barits said. Thirty-nine Taiwanese enterprises had listed in Hong Kong by the end of last month with a total market capitalization of US$22 billion.
■ Fire at Motech plant
Motech Industries Inc (茂迪), a maker of solar-power generating cells, said a fire at its Tainan plant damaged the factory and killed one worker. The fire, caused by a gas leakage, was put out, the company said in statement to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Motech said the plant is insured against fire and the company will file claim once its losses are assessed.
■ E-commerce to top NT$51bn
Taiwan's business-to-customer e-commerce is estimated to reach NT$51.07 billion this year, which constitutes 1.65 percent of the nation's retail market, the Institute for Information Industry's e-commerce research center said yesterday. The figure will further increase to NT$73.15 billion with a compound annual growth rate of 31.99 percent through 2009, the center said in a report. Travel ticket and hotel booking constitutes the largest slice of the e-commerce pie with 60.08 percent of the market, followed by financial service of 18.38 percent and sale of consumer electronics with 7.21 percent, the report said. But the significant growth does not ensure profitability. A poll conducted by the center showed that 34.61 percent of online store operators made a profit as of last month, while 12.59 percent broke even and 31.47 percent lost money. The major obstacle to developing the online commerce sector is transaction security, which worried 36.1 percent of users, while 14.5 percent said they were concerned about the quality of goods offered for sale.
■ Uni-President sells beer stake
Uni-President Enterprises Corp (統一企業), the nation's largest food conglomerate, announced yesterday that it will dispose of its 40-percent shareholding in the Chinese Zhuhai-based beer company it established with Japan's Kirin Group in 1996. The company said it has decided to focus on its core businesses.
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last