Vice President Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) said domestic makers of computer memory should consolidate to remain competitive as demand falls amid a global recession.
“Certainly we wouldn’t abandon this industry” in Taiwan, which accounts for about 30 percent of global supplies, Siew said yesterday at an American Chamber of Commerce meeting in Taipei, when asked what the government would do to support the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) market.
“We should take this opportunity to consolidate the industry to become more competitive,” he said.
The nation’s top-five DRAM producers posted combined losses of NT$94.8 billion (US$2.8 billion) in the first nine months. Against this backdrop, Siew said DRAM makers needed integration, innovation, intellectual capital, integrity and infrastructure.
“We will help them develop very high technical capability,” he said, without providing more details on the possible assistance for chipmakers.
“If our DRAM industry in Taiwan can’t take advantage of this opportunity and upgrade and become more competitive, even without the financial crisis, you can’t survive,” Siew said.
The vice president also said Taiwan had room to increase its debt-to-fund public spending to boost economic growth. The ratio of outstanding debt to gross domestic product is 36.95 percent at present and Taiwan has a statutory limit of 48 percent.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
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
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last