The government yesterday forecast massive growth in its solar energy industry, expecting its total value to reach NT$403.1 billion (US$12.5 billion) in 2015, compared with NT$21.1 billion last year.
By 2015 the nation should account for 7 percent of global production of solar-power generation equipment, compared with 2 percent last year, said the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), quoting the Ministry of Economic Affair's Bureau of Energy.
To promote the industry, the government will assist in establishing a complete industrial chain for solar energy, from upstream production of silicon materials and crystals, through midstream photovoltaic modules and batteries to downstream photovoltaic system applications.
The ministry has designated solar energy as a strategic industry, TAITRA said.
RECOVERED CONFIDENCE: As market rationality returns, Taiwanese stocks that have lagged behind their US peers might soon catch up, Allianz researchers said Local shares last week defied heavy pressure from China’s military drills in waters around Taiwan, and investors this week are expected to pay attention to earnings results from several tech heavyweights as well as the latest economic data on exports and GDP. The TAIEX closed at 15,036.04 points on Friday, posting a weekly increase of 0.24 percent from 15,000.07 on July 29, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Over the same period, the FTSE TWSE Taiwan 50 Index, which comprises Taiwan’s top 50 stocks in terms of market capitalization, closed up 0.93 percent at 11,750.15 points, while the Formosa Stock Index, which measures
Pharmaceutical start-up AcadeMab Biomedical Inc (研生生醫) said it has been developing a COVID-19 antibody drug, an endeavor not being undertaken by many other Taiwanese pharmaceutical firms. The company was spun off from Academia Sinica’s Institute of Cellular and Organismic Biology in 2020 and has only 16 employees. It has set its sights on the innovative field of the monoclonal antibody treatment of tumors. The start-up began developing antibody drugs in January, after seeing that COVID-19 vaccines could not effectively protect people from new variants of SARS-CoV-2, AcadeMab Biomedical chief strategy officer Pearl Fong (俸清珠) said in an interview with the Taipei Times
FORECAST EXCEEDED: China’s curbs on some Taiwanese goods are unlikely to affect trade given inter-reliance in the electronics industries, a finance ministry official said Exports last month spiked 14.2 percent to US$43.32 billion, the second-highest increase on record and the 25th consecutive month of gains, driven by global demand for electronics used in high-performance computing and vehicles, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The ministry expects the trend to sustain this month and beyond, although the pace could slow due to inventory corrections for laptops, smartphones and other consumer electronics. “The July results proved stronger than expected despite rising fears over economic uncertainty,” Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) said, adding that a high sales season in the West and stabilized COVID-19 infections in China
Government officials and business representatives yesterday participated in a groundbreaking ceremony at the Nanzih Technology Industrial Park (楠梓科技產業園區) in Kaohsiung, where Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is to construct a 12-inch wafer plant. The 238-hectare park sits on the former site of a naphtha cracking plant owned by state-owned oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油). Thirty hectares of the first phase of development are reserved for TSMC’s planned factory, while the second phase is to be occupied by international semiconductor material and equipment companies, the Executive Yuan said in a statement yesterday. “The park will be connected with Tainan Science Park