CSBC posts higher revenue
CSBC Corp, Taiwan (台船), the nation’s leading shipbuilder, yesterday reported NT$4.01 billion (US$115.41 million) in revenue last month, a 93.15 percent increase from a year ago, because the firm was ahead of schedule in deliveries of ships to its clients, company spokesman Wang Ko-hsuan (王克旋) said.
Wang said CSBC would finish delivering three new ships this month and that it had orders for 58 container ships and 30 military speed boats, at a total cost of NT$120 billion, for completion by October 2012.
Kaohsiung-based CSBC’s major clients include Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運), Wan Hai Lines Ltd (萬海航運), as well as shipping firms in Germany, Japan and South Korea.
Employees return to work
The number of workers on unpaid leave at two of the nation’s science parks has been decreasing significantly since the beginning of this year, statistics provided by the Science Park Administration showed yesterday.
The Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區) said the percentage of workers taking unpaid leave had fallen to 45 percent this month from 70 percent in January, saying the photonics industry had particularly benefited from China’s recent program subsidizing home appliance purchases in rural areas and it had received a massive increase in orders.
The Southern Taiwan Science Park (南部科學園區) also saw the number of workers on unpaid leave fall to 11,000 at the end of last month, from 15,000 at the end of last year.
China Steel sales down
China Steel Corp (中鋼), the nation’s largest steelmaker, said sales fell 26 percent last month compared with the year earlier.
Sales dropped to NT$12.4 billion, the Kaohsiung-based company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday, without giving a comparative figure.
HTC sees rebound this month
HTC Corp (宏達電), the world’s largest maker of handsets using Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system, said sales would rebound this month after hitting a low point.
“Monthly revenues bottomed out in February and we expect sales to pick up in March,” the Taoyuan-based company said in a statement yesterday.
Year-to-date sales up to the end of last month declined 11 percent to NT$19.2 billion, it said.
Kaohsiung seeing less cargo
The port of Kaohsiung’s container-handling volume recorded a year-on-year decline for the fourth consecutive month in January, mainly because of the severe global economic downturn, statistics released yesterday by the Kaohsiung Harbor Bureau showed.
The volume of containers handled by the port totaled 619,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) for the month, down 28 percent compared with the 867,000 TEU handled in January last year.
Harbor master Tsai Ting-yi (蔡丁義) said volume began declining precipitously in the fourth quarter of last year, with a year-on-year decrease of more than 10 percent recorded in October and more than 24 percent in November and December.
CAL shuffles China flights
China Airlines (CAL, 華航) will increase its number of flights between Taiwan and Hangzhou, China, from three charter flights a week to four, a CAL executive stationed in Shanghai said yesterday.
With more tourists from Hangzhou visiting Taiwan, CAL said it decided to switch one of its charter flights on the Taiwan-Shenzhen route to the Taiwan-Hangzhou route.
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
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last