Cabinet passes job plan
The Cabinet approved a four-year job creation project aimed at reducing unemployment at a meeting presided over by Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) yesterday.
The project calls for the creation of an estimated 55,000 job opportunities each year, or about 200,000 jobs in four years, which would eventually contribute to lowering the unemployment rate by 3 percentage points, officials from the Council for Economic Planning and Development said.
The government will provide annual funding of NT$6.6 billion for the project, which will cover 53 sub-programs. These will mainly involve the expansion of cooperation programs between the academic and industrial sectors, expansion of vocational training programs, wage subsidies to business owners to boost job openings and assistance for start-ups and self-employed entrepreneurs, council officials said.
Cathay plans bond issue
Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控), the nation’s biggest financial service provider, said yesterday it planned to raise up to NT$20 billion (US$610 million) by issuing corporate bonds to improve its financial structure.
The company plans to use the proceeds to boost its risk-based capital ratio, it said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Cathay Financial also plans to use part of the funds to subscribe to the share sales of its life insurance arm, Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), the statement said.
The board of Cathay Life also approved a NT$15 billion fund-raising plan yesterday. The life insurer plans to sell 300 million preferential shares at NT$50 per share.
HTC posts healthy revenues
HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s largest manufacturer of Windows-based smartphones, reported yesterday that revenue last month reached NT$16.04 billion (US$489 million), an increase of 22.4 percent from October last year.
For the first 10 months of the year, HTC’s total revenues hit NT$121.22 billion, a growth a 30.8 percent from the same period last year, the company said in a statement.
Buyback rules loosened
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) said yesterday it will temporarily scrap the rule that requires brokerages to have posted no losses in their most recent annual and semi-annual financial reports to conduct share buybacks.
The requirement will be scrapped until March 31 next year, in consideration of the current state of the securities market and the nature of brokerage business, the statement said. The waiver applies to brokerages that are listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and over-the-counter market.
Lee Chi-hsien (李啟賢), director-general of the Securities and Futures Bureau, said the move will allow brokerages that had posted profits until this year to conduct share buybacks.
Qisda posts slight sales growth
Qisda Corp (佳世達), a local electronics maker and a spin-off of BenQ Corp (明基), said revenues came in at NT$9.85 billion last month, up 2.3 percent from the previous month but down 11.1 percent from the same month last year.
The company was cautious on fourth-quarter prospects, retaining its projector shipment target of 3.5 million units with average selling price trending downward.
Mobile device shipments are expected to reach 200,000 units, it said.
NT dollar gains ground
The New Taiwan dollar continued gaining ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.011 to close at NT$32.819.
A total of US$1.28 billion changed hands in the day’s trading.
Taiwan’s long-term economic competitiveness will hinge not only on national champions like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) but also on the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies, a US-based scholar has said. At a lecture in Taipei on Tuesday, Jeffrey Ding, assistant professor of political science at the George Washington University and author of "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers," argued that historical experience shows that general-purpose technologies (GPTs) — such as electricity, computers and now AI — shape long-term economic advantages through their diffusion across the broader economy. "What really matters is not who pioneers
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
INFLATION CONSIDERATION: The BOJ governor said that it would ‘keep making appropriate decisions’ and would adjust depending on the economy and prices The Bank of Japan (BOJ) yesterday raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest in 30 years and said more increases are in the pipeline if conditions allow, in a sign of growing conviction that it can attain the stable inflation target it has pursued for more than a decade. Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda’s policy board increased the rate by 0.2 percentage points to 0.75 percent, in a unanimous decision, the bank said in a statement. The central bank cited the rising likelihood of its economic outlook being realized. The rate change was expected by all 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The
RSS