Suntech Power Holdings Co (尚德), the world’s biggest maker of silicon solar panels, expects China to account for as much as 20 percent of its sales within three years as the nation tries to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Sales in China amount to about 2 percent of the total at the company based in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, chief executive officer Shi Zhengrong (施正榮) said in a July 3 phone interview from Beijing.
“China, once it decides to do something, it happens very quickly,” Shi said. “I think with solar it will be similar.”
The world’s biggest greenhouse-gas emitting-nation plans to boost capacity for producing electricity from sunlight to 10 gigawatts by 2020, enough to supply about 10 million US homes, from 1.8 gigawatts now, the Chinese Renewable Energy Industries Association said. China’s solar targets are likely to be about a 10-fold increase in the next decade, Shi said.
“If China does invest heavily in solar power as it has promised, it will be an increasingly attractive proposition for solar companies,” said Jenny Chase, an analyst at New Energy Finance in London. “Solar companies don’t follow the sun for business, they follow the subsidies to countries like Germany and Spain, which are the big markets.”
About 78 percent of Suntech’s revenue is generated in Europe, while the US accounts for about 7.5 percent, data supplied by the New York-listed company showed. Germany will likely remain Suntech’s biggest market by 2012, Rory Macpherson, the head of investor relations at the company, said by telephone.
A series of policy announcements in China encouraging renewable energy use, including subsidies for fitting solar panels on roofs, helped Suntech’s US depositary receipts gain 42 percent in the second quarter. The ADRs have climbed 57 percent this year and closed at US$18.37 last Thursday.
Suntech’s targets for sales growth in China are supported by the potential for domestic producers’ business to increase from a low base, Chase said. Chinese companies are well placed to gain from future increased demand because the government will be inclined to favor local manufacturers, she said.
Suntech is building contacts with local authorities as it awaits details of how the government will expand solar power in the coming decade, Shi said.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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