Taiwan’s Evergreen Group (長榮集團) will order 10 ships from the nation’s leading shipyard for US$1.03 billion, powering ahead with a plan to more than double its container fleet, a report said yesterday.
Tang Tay-ping (譚泰平), president of CSBC Corp, Taiwan (CSBC, 台灣國際造船), told the Chinese-language Commercial Times that his company was expected to obtain the order before the end of this month.
If finalized, the contract would require construction of 10 8,000-TEU (20ft equivalent) container vessels at a total price of NT$33.1 billion (US$1.03 billion), with the first ships due for delivery in 2014, the paper said.
Evergreen said the deal was not finalized when reached for comment.
The report came after Evergreen Marine, the world’s fourth largest shipping firm, ordered 10 ships from Samsung Heavy Industries of South Korea for US$1.03 billion early this month.
Group chairman Chang Yung-fa (張榮發) told the media earlier this year that Evergreen Marine would spend more than US$5 billion to boost by 100 its current fleet of 81.
The 100 ships may cost up to NT$170 billion, he said.
Chang was quoted in the press late last year as saying it was a good time to start acquiring more ships as the global recession was coming to an end.
In addition to its 81 container ships, Evergreen charters another 69.
Meanwhile, Wan Hai Lines Ltd (萬海航運) bought 1,800 shipping containers from China International Marine Containers (Group) Ltd (中集集團) for US$9.25 million, the Taipei-based company said in an exchange filing yesterday.
The company also said it added two vessels to a container-ship purchase order from CSBC, raising its budget for the orders by US$23.5 million to US$639.4 million.
Wan Hai now expects to take delivery of 14 ships beginning in the second quarter of 2012, it said in another exchange filing.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”