■ Trade
TAITRA to launch fruit drive
The Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) will launch a publicity drive this year to promote local fruit in major markets, including Japan and Hong Kong, TAITRA officials said yesterday. The officials said the focus will be to strengthen the international marketing and image of the nation's agricultural products, with plans to step up publicity in targeted markets. They said the image design and packaging will feature mangoes and bananas. TAITRA will place advertisements in the Hong Kong International Airport, Japan's Narita International Airport and Haneda Airport, as well as in major subway stations and commercial districts in Hong Kong and Japan, they said. TAITRA has established marketing bases in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, Shanghai and Beijing to promote the marketing drive, they said.
■ Energy
Taipower hails green plan
Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) has devised a long-term plan for greater use of alternative and renewable energy sources, including hydro-electricity, wind power and solar energy, in the face of skyrocketing international fuel prices, the Ministry of Economic Affairs announced. Taipower's thermal power plants in Changhua, Linkou and Keelung have filed proposals to develop more alternative energy sources. The proposals are now undergoing environmental impact reviews by the Environmental Protection Administration, the ministry said. With the development of alternative energy technologies reaching maturity, the cost of utilizing these sources of energy has decreased significantly, making them more viable than before, the ministry said.
■ Economy
Euro zone growth set to rise
Economic growth in the euro zone will increase in the first three months of this year, despite a weak performance by France and Germany at the end of last year, a top EU official said on Friday. "We continue to believe the economy is in a good trend," Joaquin Almunia, European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, told Dow Jones Newswires in Moscow. "Our impression about the first quarter is still positive," he said. Figures released on Friday showed the French economy grew just 0.2 percent in the last quarter of last year, while Germany's statistics agency indicated that its economy -- the euro zone's largest -- may have been stagnant. Those figures could raise doubts about the sustainability of the euro-zone economy recovery as the European Central Bank raises interest rates.
■ Airline industry
Air China seeks share issue
Beijing-based Air China Ltd (中國國際航空) said on Friday it had applied to list 2.7 billion shares on the Shanghai stock exchange to finance the purchase of aircraft. The airline, which is listed on the Hong Kong and London bourses, said it would seek Chinese market regulators' approval for a yuan-denominated A share issue equivalent to nearly 29 percent of its existing issued share capital. The notice to the Hong Kong exchange did not say how much the company wanted to raise, but net proceeds from the listing will be used to finance a previously announced purchase of 45 aircraft. The money will also be spent on improving facilities at its Beijing base. Air China chairman Li Jiaxiang (李家祥) said the company expects to pay no more than US$5.68 billion for all of the aircraft, while the development of the Beijing facility will cost about 600 million yuan (US$74 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
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
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
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six