Canon Inc, the world’s biggest camera maker, began construction on Sunday of a new plant in Greater Taichung to meet higher demand for the company’s products.
Market analysts believe that the combined investment in the new plant, along with another for which construction is slated to begin in August, will exceed NT$30 billion (US$1.05 billion), according to local media reports.
Canon will invest NT$11 billion in its new factory in the Taichung Export Processing Zone, with construction slated to be completed by the end of May next year.
The Taichung plant will begin production in the second half of next year, employing 3,000 workers.
Rising demand for digital single-lens-reflex cameras in recent years prompted the company to decide last year to expand its production in Taiwan, the reports said.
Since the establishment of its first Taiwanese branch in the zone 40 years ago, Canon has brought both capital and technology to the country, making central Taiwan a hub for the optics industry, Canon Taiwan chairman Kenji Yoshida said at a ground-breaking ceremony for the new plant.
The second new plant that will begin being built in August will be located in the Chiayi Dapumei Intelligent Industrial Park.
Construction of that plant will be completed in July next year and once operational, it will require 3,000 to 4,000 employees, the reports said.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
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The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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