The European Chamber of Commerce Taipei (ECCT) said Chris James, president and chief executive officer of Allianz Taiwan Life Insurance Co (安聯人壽), would replace Peter Weiss as chairman of its board of directors next year after the trade organization held its annual general meeting and a new board meeting yesterday.
Weiss, president and chief executive of Siemens Limited Taiwan (台灣西門子), was elected vice chairman at the board meeting, while Michel Darrieus, president of Air Liquide Far Eastern Ltd (亞東工業氣體) was re-elected its treasurer, ECCT said in an e-mailed statement.
In an annual report delivered to members yesterday, ECCT said the chamber had finished the year with a strong membership and a stable financial base. The chamber currently has around 700 members from 420 companies and organizations.
“2010 was a good year for the ECCT and the chamber has prospered along with the Taiwan economy’s rebound after the global financial crisis,” the chamber said in the statement.
In October, the chamber in its annual position paper called for the government to take decisive action to improve the nation’s economic development and find a competitive position on the international stage.
At the time, the ECCT highlighted three main areas the government should look into: Bringing the nation’s legal system into line with international standards, bans on certain imports from China and signing Trade Enhancement Measures an agreement with the EU.
The ECCT is expected to send its annual Open Door Mission to Brussels later this month to discuss related trade issues with senior European Commission representatives, members of the European Parliament and Taiwan’s representative to the EU.
In related news, Mercedes-Benz Taiwan Ltd (台灣賓士) yesterday announced that Eberhard Kern would take over from Wolfram Geisler as the company’s new president and chief executive officer, after Geisler decided to retire from the post.
Kern, 47, has been working for the Daimler AG for 28 years. Prior to joining the Taiwan team, he was vice-president of Mercedes-Benz Russia SAO and helped boost the company’s sales in that country four times in five years.
Geisler, 62, had been with Mercedes-Benz Taiwan for seven years. During the first 11 months of the year, the company sold 8,036 cars, up more than 70 percent from a year earlier, beating Lexus and BMW as the leading luxury car brand in Taiwan, according to the company’s tallies.
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],”