CAL denies purchase plans
The nation's largest carrier China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 華航) said yesterday that it has no plans to purchase Boeing 787 Dreamliner passenger jets for the moment, rebutting a report by the Chinese-language China Times daily.
The report said Taipei-based CAL would spend US$1.26 billion to purchase seven Boeing 787 Dreamliner passenger jets to replace its seven older Airbus 340-300 planes, which are around seven to eight years old.
The carrier is evaluating the replacement of some passenger jets, according to the statement.
A possible procurement by CAL has a possible political angle, given the attractiveness of balancing a trade surplus with the US.
Citing CAL president Ringo Chao (趙國帥), the report said the carrier had just completed a five-year aircraft replacement program, and was evaluating the next replacement project.
The China Times said Minister of Transportation and Communications Tsai Duei (蔡堆) went to the US last week for a briefing on the new plane.
"China Airlines did not decide on the purchase and has not placed any order," the statement read. "Tsai's visit has nothing to do with China Airlines."
Formosa Plastics to be fined
Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑) will be fined for failing to reduce water consumption, Edward Huang (黃光輝), director-general of the Environmental Protection Ad-ministration's (EPA) department of comprehensive planning, said yesterday.
The company has until the end of the month to respond before the government decides details of the fine, Huang said. Formosa Chemicals & Fiber Corp (台灣化學纖維) also faces a similar penalty, he said.
By law, breaking water consumption rules is punishable by NT$300,000 (US$9,100) to NT$1.5 million a day, he said.
The Cabinet overturned the EPA's decision in March to fine the group a combined NT$7 million for breaking rules on water usage.
Pou Chen sells more shares
Local footwear maker Pou Chen Corp (寶成) said yesterday that a European institutional investor had bought 114.84 million shares, or a 4.69 percent stake, in the company for about NT$4.2 billion.
The shares were sold by units of Pou Chen, a company official said.
"The disposals are aimed at [improving] corporate governance for Pou Chen," the official said.
He did not disclose the identity of the investor, but the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported that EFG of Switzerland was the buyer.
With the deal and some earlier share disposals, seven Pou Chen units have realized gains of NT$1.64 billion from a sale of 122.49 million shares of the parent firm for NT$4.51 billion, the Pou Chen official said.
Fubon denies Xiamen deal
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) yesterday denied a report that it will ink an official investment pact tomorrow with Xiamen City Commercial Bank (廈門市商銀) to buy a 20 percent share of the Chinese rival for 600 million yuan (US$79.3 million), or 2.2 yuan per share.
The Chinese-language Win Win Weekly reported yesterday that a consortium comprising Fubon Financial and other unnamed investors will strike the long-rumored deal with the Xiamen lender this week for a total 51 percent share.
"There is no such deal," Fubon Financial spokesman Victor Kung (龔天行) said in a statement last night.
The company hopes to develop itself into a "first-class financial institution in Asia" by building a complete network in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China.
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
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts