■ FSC approves Shinsei purchase
The Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday approved Shinsei Bank Ltd's purchase of a 31.8 percent stake in Jih Sun Financial Holding Co (日盛金控), the nation's 12th-largest financial group by assets.
The financial regulator also agreed that Shinsei could convert its purchase of 630 million Jih Sun Financial preferred shares into common shares in five years.
In May the Japanese bank reached an agreement with Jih Sun to invest in Jih Sun through a mix of common and preferred shares in a private placement.
After the conversion, Shinsei is expected to own a more than 50 percent stake in Jih Sun, which will make the lender the first Taiwanese financial holding company to be controlled by foreign investors.
■ Elpida mulls new factory
Elpida Memory Inc, Japan's largest maker of computer memory chips, said it may build a new factory and is considering locations in Japan and Taiwan to meet growing demand for semiconductors.
Elpida may build its next plant in Taiwan, the Asahi newspaper reported yesterday, without saying where it got the information.
The company is considering building a plant in Taiwan because of the favorable tax incentives offered here, the paper said.
Company spokeswoman Tomoko Kobayashi denied the report saying the company is looking at various locations for a prospective site but nothing has been decided.
``We are considering building a new factory because our Hiroshima plant will reach full capacity in fiscal 2008,'' Kobayashi said.
The paper said that the planned factory will aim at producing 100,000 300-mm wafers a month.
■ TAITRA to ink Peru agreement
The Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會) is scheduled to sign a cooperation agreement with the Exporters Association of Peru (ADEX) today to step up trade and investment information exchanges and mutual visits by trade delegations, a TAITRA official said yesterday.
ADEX General Manager Alvaro Luis Barrenechea Chavez and his TAITRA counterpart will ink the agreement on behalf of their respective organizations, the official said, adding that with more than 1,000 members, ADEX -- which was founded in 1973 -- is one of the leading industrial and business organizations in Peru.
According to official statistics, two-way trade exchanges between Taiwan and Peru amounted to US$462 million last year, up 26.36 percent year-on-year, making Peru the nation's third largest trade partner in South America behind Brazil and Chile.
■ Energy seminar to be held
A Taiwan-Canada seminar on energy development and environmental protection is scheduled to be held from Aug. 19-20 in Ottawa under the auspices of the Ottawa Chapter of the North America Taiwanese Engineers' Association (NATEA) and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada.
NATEA's Ottawa chapter chairman Yen Kung-chan (閻公展) said the seminar will focus on how to use environmental protection technologies to reduce various kinds of pollution which may be brought about by energy development.
Yen said government officials, industrialists, as well as scholars and experts from Taiwan and Canada will be invited to attend the conference to discuss issues concerning renewable energy development and environmental protection technology applications and share their experience in these areas.
■ NT dollar gains on greenback
The New Taiwan dollar turned strong against its US counterpart yesterday, gaining NT$0.157 to close at NT$32.740 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$667 million.
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