Despite declines in the first half of the year, private investment has picked up steam in the second half and is expected to achieve positive growth for the whole year, a government source forecast yesterday.
Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) Chairman Hu Sheng-cheng (胡勝正) quoted tallies compiled by the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) as indicating that private investment declined 3.89 percent year-on-year for the January to June period, mainly as a result of spiraling crude oil prices.
However, private investment has rebounded from the beginning of the second half of the year, mainly as a result of rising production in the semiconductor industry, Hu said.
Hu quoted the DGBAS tallies as forecasting that private investment would expand 5 percent for the July to December period and rise 0.53 percent for the entire year.
Quoting a survey conducted by the Ministry of Economic Affairs last month, Hu said that 28.1 percent of Taiwanese companies have increased domestic investment this year or plan to do so, up 5.1 percentage points over the figure posted in a similar survey in October last year.
Meanwhile, based on the ministry's statistics, foreign investment totaled US$10.7 billion for the first 10 months of this year, marking a new record high for the period, Hu said.
Hu discounted a local newspaper report yesterday that private investment has declined because of a string of corruption allegations involving the president, his family and top aides as well as a decline in administrative efficiency due to constant political wrangling.
He said graft allegations involving the president and his family are only "isolated cases," adding that how the domestic economy performs will hinge largely on the legislature's decisions and performance on economic issues.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”