Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) and China Telecom Corp (中國電信) yesterday announced plans to jointly build a submarine cable between Kinmen and Xiamen.
Construction of the submarine cable is estimated to cost less than 100 million yuan, or NT$476 million, with the two telecom operators sharing the cost, company executives said yesterday on the sidelines of a two-day meeting on Cross-Strait Telecommunications Cooperation and Exchange in Taipei.
The submarine cable project is still subject to approval by Taiwanese and Chinese authorities.
Leng Rongquan (冷榮泉), chief engineer of China Telecom, said the company was still in talks with Taiwan’s largest telecommunications operator about the project.
He said that construction of the cable would be beneficial to the telecommunications industry on both sides of the Strait, as it would increase efficiency and reduce costs.
Chunghwa Telecom’s chairman and chief executive officer Lu Shyue-ching (呂學錦) said the construction of the submarine cable will begin once it receives the green light from Taiwan’s Ministry of Transportation and Communications.
“If development of the telecommunications industry across the Taiwan Strait could help reduce costs, we would lower prices to reflect the cost reductions,” Lu said.
Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Hwang Jung-chiou (黃重球) estimated that the demand for third-generation (3G) mobile phones in China would reach 150 million units within the next year or two.
Hwang said China’s 3G mobile communication market offers 1 trillion yuan in business opportunities, with about 60 percent going to mobile phones. If Taiwanese manufacturers could get hold of about one-tenth of the pie, it would be worth around 60 billion yuan.
Mobile phone manufacturers and chip design companies in Taiwan will be the biggest beneficiaries, he said.
Separately, China Mobile Communications Corp (中國移動) yesterday voiced its confidence that the Taiwanese government would permit it to invest in Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信).
China Mobile on April 29 announced a strategic alliance with Far EasTone and plans to buy a 12 percent stake in the Taiwanese firm.
China Mobile vice president Liu Aili (劉愛力) said that while the company has plans to expand its stake in the future, it would not get involved in Far EasTone’s daily operations and would never become the firm’s major shareholder.
“I believe there is no vital difference between holding 10 percent and 12 percent. I don’t believe that the [Taiwanese] government will allow us to hold a 10 percent stake in Far EasTone, but say no to holding 12 percent,” Liu said.
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in artificial-intelligence (AI) chips, yesterday said that small-volume production of 3-nanometer (nm) chips for a key customer is on track to start by the end of this year, dismissing speculation about delays in producing advanced chips. As Alchip is transitioning from 7-nanometer and 5-nanometer process technology to 3 nanometers, investors and shareholders have been closely monitoring whether the company is navigating through such transition smoothly. “We are proceeding well in [building] this generation [of chips]. It appears to me that no revision will be required. We have achieved success in designing
RSS