■HOUSING
Taiwan rental prices drop
The average price of apartments in Taiwan fell to the lowest in almost two years last month, with replacement demand from home owners ebbing as the country’s economy enters recession. Housing prices declined 7.8 percent to an average NT$228,700 (US$6,800) per ping (3.3m²), the lowest since March 2007, said Stanley Su, senior researcher at Sinyi Realty Co, Taiwan’s only listed property broker. Prices in the capital Taipei averaged NT$368,800, he said. “Dwindling replacement demand is the main reason prices fell,” Su said yesterday. “Home owners who wish to move into nicer apartments in better locations are holding back as the recession deepens.”
■EMPLOYMENT
Cabinet to create jobs
The Cabinet expects to create more jobs this year to help combat the rising number of unemployed, an economic planning official said on Friday. Vice chairman of the Council for Economic Planning and Development San Gee (單驥) said the number of created jobs would be increased to 330,000 this year, from 150,000 jobs estimated previously. To help solve the unemployment problem for college graduates, the government will offer 35,000 internships in local enterprises for unemployed college graduates who got their degrees between 2006 and last year, at a monthly salary ranging from NT$22,000 to NT$35,000, San said. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and the National Science Council would offer the same monthly pay to college graduates serving as assistants in research projects.
■CONSUMING
Ma La Sun sold in China
The “Ma La Sun” millet wine made famous by Taiwan’s blockbuster movie Cape No. 7 has made inroads into China’s market even before the movie opens there next Saturday. The millet wine producer, the Shinyi Hsiang Farmers’ Association from Nantou County, has already begun exporting the liquor to a Xiamen-based trading company that is serving as its exclusive distributor in China. Jin Jun (金君), the deputy general manager of the trading company, said yesterday that the Ma La Sun millet wine went on sale in China on Jan. 8.
■OIL
Offshore Group bought
Colombia and South Korea’s state oil companies announced on Friday their US$900 million purchase of US-based Offshore International Group Inc, whose main asset is the oil developer Petro-Tech Peruana SA. Ecopetrol SA and Korean National Oil Corp will each have a 50 percent interest in Petro-Tech, which has 11 blocks in Peru — one in production and the rest in exploration. Petro-Tech has been operating on the country’s northern coast since 1994, producing nearly 12,000 barrels of crude daily and has more than 100 million barrels in reserves, Ecopetrol said in statement issued in Bogota.
■PHARMACEUTICALS
Glaxo eyes Piramal
British drug developer GlaxoSmithKline PLC is reportedly in talks to buy Indian generic drug developer Piramal Healthcare Ltd for about US$1.5 billion. Late on Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that people familiar with the potential deal said the companies are at an early stage of talks. GlaxoSmithKline said it would not comment and Piramal could not be reached for comment. In December, GlaxoSmithKline agreed to buy Bristol-Myers Squibb Pakistan Ltd and certain associated trademarks for about US$36.5 million, adding an emerging market to its business.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to