Taiwan’s optoelectronics industry posted a record output value last year by hitting NT$2.27 trillion (US$77.6 billion) amid strong international demand for Taiwanese solar components, LED lighting and electronic paper, the Photonics Industry and Technology Development Association (PIDA, 光電科技工業協進會) said yesterday.
The figure, up 37 percent from last year, smashed the record set in 2007, the association said.
The output value meant Taiwan seized an 18 percent share of the global optoelectronics market, Murphy Lin (林穎毅), director of PIDA’s industry and technology research division, told a media briefing.
“Flat-panel displays have led the growth of Taiwan’s optoelectronics industry for the last 10 years,” he said. “For the next five years, solar power and LED will take center stage.”
There have been signs supporting the trend, he said, as solar modules and solar systems reported the highest output growth last year among all optoelectronics products, by increasing 470 percent and 433 percent respectively.
The third-highest growth came from LED lighting, which expanded 130 percent, Lin said.
The output of the solar power sector is forecast to hit NT$299.8 billion in 2013, from NT$189.5 billion last year, according to PIDA’s statistics.
Asia has increased its weight in world solar battery production, with China commanding 38 percent of the production share last year, Taiwan taking 12 percent and Japan 11 percent, Lin said.
Production shares of Germany and the US were 14 percent and 13 percent respectively last year, the association said.
In terms of the LED sector, PIDA industrial analyst Deaphne Kuo (郭子菱) said the sector will see a boost as more Asian countries, such as Japan, Taiwan and China, deploy LEDs for street lamps and in government offices.
The falling price tags would also add to the attractiveness for people to buy LED lighting, she said.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
UNCERTAINTIES: Exports surged 34.1% and private investment grew 7.03% to outpace expectations in the first half, although US tariffs could stall momentum The Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast to 3.05 percent this year on a robust first-half performance, but warned that US tariff threats and external uncertainty could stall momentum in the second half of the year. “The first half proved exceptionally strong, allowing room for optimism,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “But the growth momentum may slow moving forward due to US tariffs.” The tariff threat poses definite downside risks, although the scale of the impact remains unclear given the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s policies, Lien said. Despite the headwinds, Taiwan is likely
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
RSS