The Taichung Port has surpassed the Keelung Port to become the nation’s second-largest, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) said on Tuesday, citing statistics from harbor bureaus.
Taichung Harbor Bureau statistics showed that the total cargo handled at that port topped 90.7 million tonnes for the first time this month.
Kaohsiung Port, which handles about 381 million tonnes of cargo per year, is the nation’s largest seaport
Keelung Port handles about 63.5 million tonnes of cargo per year. Part of the cargo previously handled at Keelung Port is now processed at Taipei Port instead. The Taipei facility was opened in 2003.
The ministry said the total cargo handled reached 88.6 million tonnes between January and last month, registering 21 percent growth compared with same time last year. The total containers handled also grew by 13.92 percent.
The analysis from Taichung’s harbor bureau showed that several types of cargo have seen strong growth this year. Cement rose by 21.44 percent to more than 432,700 tonnes. Petrochemical products and liquefied natural gas increased by 66.82 percent to 2.2 million tonnes. The most extraordinary growth was seen in the automobile industry, which rose by 105.89 percent.
Meanwhile, the huge amount of land owned by Taichung Port has drawn 59 companies to invest in the port, with total investment topping NT$457.5 billion (US$15.3 billion). Thirty firms have also established operations in its free-trade zone.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI