■CONSTRUCTION
Chong Hong in probe
Chong Hong Construction Co (長虹建設) chairman Lee Wen-tsao (李文造) and his wife came under investigation on Friday over alleged breach of trust, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Prosecutors raided Lee’s home and other locations, including the company, said Lin Chin-chun (林錦村), spokesman for the prosecutors’ office. The developer, which builds luxury apartments, said in a stock exchange filing late on Friday that its offices had been searched, but did not give details. Lee and his wife are suspected of buying land to resell to Chang Hong at higher prices between 2004 and last year, Lin said. Chong Hong said it would cooperate in the investigation, adding that its financials and operations would not be affected.
■PROPERTY
Cathay Life buys building
Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控) said on Friday that its insurance unit, Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), had bought an office building in Neihu from Chailease Finance Co (中租迪和) for NT$2.82 billion (US$85.57 million), or NT$349,929 per ping (3.3m²). The sum compares with appraisals made by DTZ Debenham Tie Leung (戴德梁行) at NT$2.85 billion and Top Real Estate Appraisal Firm (尚上不動產) at NT$3.82 billion, a stock exchange filing said.
■ENERGY
BP scraps Canada project
British oil company BP said on Friday that it was abandoning plans to build a refinery in eastern Canada. BP has worked for the last 18 months with Canadian firm Irving Oil to study the feasibility of building a refinery in St. John, New Brunswick. The two firms reached the conclusion that “the project was not viable at a time of global economic recession and dampening forecasts for petroleum product demand in North America,” BP said in a statement.
■COMPUTERS
Dell settles in lawsuit
Dell Inc said on Friday it had agreed to settle a federal gender-discrimination class action lawsuit brought by former employees for US$9.1 million. Under the terms of the settlement, Dell said US$5.6 million will be used for payments to class members and for litigation costs. The class is defined as all women employed by Dell in the US for at least one day in a C1 through D3 level position between Feb. 14, 2007, and Dec. 31 last year. Another US$3.5 million will be used to raise C1 to D3-level female employees’ pay to match that of male counterparts. The lawsuit said Dell showed a pattern of gender discrimination in salaries.
■FINANCE
Brown says sector stable
The British banking sector has stabilized but the world still lacks an overall strategy to ensure positive economic momentum, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Friday. “I think we’re at a point where the banks have been stabilized,” he told a seminar on reforming international financial institutions.
■GLOBAL ECONOMY
WTO head positive on trade
The global contraction in trade seems to be bottoming out, with Asia showing a rebound, WTO director-general Pascal Lamy said on Friday. But Lamy warned against “excessive optimism” as jobless numbers were still rising. “Although financial markets have recently shown signs of stabilization, and the trade contraction ... seems to [be] bottoming out, it is unclear how and how long it will take us to exit the crisis,” he told delegates of the WTO’s 153-member states.
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
Six Taiwanese companies, including contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), made the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list of the world’s largest firms by revenue. In a report published by New York-based Fortune magazine on Tuesday, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), ranked highest among Taiwanese firms, placing 28th with revenue of US$213.69 billion. Up 60 spots from last year, TSMC rose to No. 126 with US$90.16 billion in revenue, followed by Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) at 348th, Pegatron Corp (和碩) at 461st, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) at 494th and Wistron Corp (緯創) at
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
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