Green Energy Technology Inc (綠能科技), the nation’s biggest solar panel maker, yesterday said it planned to postpone the construction of a new plant to cut wafers by two quarters after it failed to raise enough capital amid a weak industry outlook.
Green Energy plans to spend NT$1.36 billion (US$41.2 million), down by 7 percent from its previous estimate of NT$1.5 billion, on its second wafer-cutting plant, the Taoyuan-based company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The solar wafer maker hopes to complete the construction of the plant in the fourth quarter of this year, rather than in the second quarter as originally scheduled, the filing said.
“Affected by the financial turmoil, the company is unable to raise enough funds via its original fund-raising plan,” Green Energy said when explaining its reason for trimming the budget for new equipment investment in the filing. “In addition, the market outlook is unclear.”
The installment of solar panels could fall to 3.5 gigawatts this year from 5.2 gigawatts last year as governments cut subsidies and switch their focus to rescuing financially troubled banks, said a report by Taipei-based IBT Securities Co (台灣工銀證券), citing market researcher iSuppli’s forecast.
Green Energy had planned to raise as much as US$50 million by offering convertible bonds to overseas investors and using part of the proceeds to buy new equipment to repay bank loans and to finance operations.
The company expected the adjustment of its new wafer slicing plant to reduce the effect on its operation. Green Energy said the new plant would help save costs and boost profits.
Currently, Green Energy operates a wafer cutting plant in Taoyuan County with annual capacity of 50,000 wafers.
Separately, the nation’s top solar cell maker, Motech Industries Inc (茂迪), yesterday said it had secured an order from a Chinese local government in Kunshan to supply 56-megawatt solar cells for the installment of solar panels on the rooftops of government agencies.
Share prices for Motech were unchanged at NT$131, while Green Energy shares rose 0.47 percent to NT$106.50 yesterday.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained