Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store Co (新光三越) yesterday sealed a deal with the Bureau of High Speed Rail to lease a building at Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to turn it into a shopping complex.
The nation’s leading chain department store, which won the 10-year operate-transfer (OT) contract last week for NT$505 million (US$15.6 million), will turn the building into a department store, which is slated to open next spring.
The deal will add 4.5 ping (15m²) of floor space to an adjacent Shin Kong department store that has 260,000 ping of floor space and is also due to open next spring.
Wu Tung-hsing (吳東興), chairman of the department store, said he hoped the OT project would enable his company to better serve residents of northern Kaohsiung.
The government-owned building, located between high-speed rail and mass rapid transit stations in Zuoying, has five stories above ground and two stories below ground. The MRT and high-speed rail stations are connected to it underground.
Chang Tze-yu (張子裕), deputy director of the station area development division at the bureau, said the OT project was part of a transit-oriented development plan to generate revenues and boost prosperity near high-speed rail stations. In the contract, the company may extend the lease by five years if it makes a profit in four of the contract’s 10 years.
Wu Nai-tzu (吳奈慈), regional director at Jones Land LaSalle, a property consulting firm, said the transaction promised a fair profitability outlook in light of heavy passenger traffic flow and scarce retail competition in the area.
SEMICONDUCTORS: The German laser and plasma generator company will expand its local services as its specialized offerings support Taiwan’s semiconductor industries Trumpf SE + Co KG, a global leader in supplying laser technology and plasma generators used in chip production, is expanding its investments in Taiwan in an effort to deeply integrate into the global semiconductor supply chain in the pursuit of growth. The company, headquartered in Ditzingen, Germany, has invested significantly in a newly inaugurated regional technical center for plasma generators in Taoyuan, its latest expansion in Taiwan after being engaged in various industries for more than 25 years. The center, the first of its kind Trumpf built outside Germany, aims to serve customers from Taiwan, Japan, Southeast Asia and South Korea,
Gasoline and diesel prices at domestic fuel stations are to fall NT$0.2 per liter this week, down for a second consecutive week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) announced yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to drop to NT$26.4, NT$27.9 and NT$29.9 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, the companies said in separate statements. The price of premium diesel is to fall to NT$24.8 per liter at CPC stations and NT$24.6 at Formosa pumps, they said. The price adjustments came even as international crude oil prices rose last week, as traders
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which supplies advanced chips to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday reported NT$1.046 trillion (US$33.1 billion) in revenue for last quarter, driven by constantly strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, falling in the upper end of its forecast. Based on TSMC’s financial guidance, revenue would expand about 22 percent sequentially to the range from US$32.2 billion to US$33.4 billion during the final quarter of 2024, it told investors in October last year. Last year in total, revenue jumped 31.61 percent to NT$3.81 trillion, compared with NT$2.89 trillion generated in the year before, according to
PRECEDENTED TIMES: In news that surely does not shock, AI and tech exports drove a banner for exports last year as Taiwan’s economic growth experienced a flood tide Taiwan’s exports delivered a blockbuster finish to last year with last month’s shipments rising at the second-highest pace on record as demand for artificial intelligence (AI) hardware and advanced computing remained strong, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Exports surged 43.4 percent from a year earlier to US$62.48 billion last month, extending growth to 26 consecutive months. Imports climbed 14.9 percent to US$43.04 billion, the second-highest monthly level historically, resulting in a trade surplus of US$19.43 billion — more than double that of the year before. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) described the performance as “surprisingly outstanding,” forecasting export growth