The Investment Commission yesterday approved 20 China-bound investment applications worth US$721.79 million, it said in a statement.
The commission gave the green light to Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the world’s largest electronics component maker, to invest US$47.95 million in its Chinese affiliate Foxconn Precision Electronics (Langfang) Co (富士康精密電子廊坊).
Local chip tester and packager Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體) also received the go-ahead to invest US$90 million in its Shanghai subsidiary, ASE Assembly and Test (日月光封裝測試), while Powertech Technology Inc (力成科技) was approved to invest US$100 million in its Chinese subsidiary Powertech China Ltd (力成中國科技).
In the field of finance, the commission approved an application by Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), the nation’s second-largest financial services company by market value, to indirectly invest US$25.5 million in China’s Xiamen City Commercial Bank (廈門市商銀).
The Financial Supervisory Commission gave the green light last month to Fubon Financial’s application to take a 19.99 percent stake in Xiamen City Commercial Bank for US$34 million via its Hong Kong-based subsidiary Fubon Bank (Hong Kong) Ltd.
Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), the nation’s largest life insurer, was also approved to inject US$59 million into its Chinese life insurance joint venture to increase its capital, the statement said.
The Shanghai-based Chinese subsidiary is a joint venture established by Cathay Life and China Eastern Air Holding Co (中國東方航空) in 2005.
Separately, the commission approved a proposal by United Microelectronics Corp (聯電), the world’s second-largest contract chipmaker, to invest US$390 million in its branch in Singapore, the statement said.
As for inbound investment, the commission gave the go-ahead to AIG Life Insurance Co and Delaware American Life Insurance Co’s applications to invest US$360.39 million in their local subsidiary, Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽).
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by