The Ministry of Economic Affairs offered yesterday to help Formosa Plastics Group (FPG, 台塑集團) obtain the labor it needs to conduct inspections and maintenance of its accident-plagued petrochemical plants, following the company’s complaint of a manpower shortage.
According to Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥), local experts and workers would be given priority when the hiring decisions are made.
“The government will certainly provide FPG with assistance to help it complete the inspections within the required period,” Shih said.
The government has ordered FPG to suspend operations at the 66 plants in its naphtha cracker complex in Mailiao (麥寮), Yunlin County, in stages within a year for inspection and maintenance, after the complex was hit by its seventh fire in a year on Saturday.
FPG officials said on Wednesday that the large number of personnel needed for the work would pose a huge challenge and that the company was planning to recruit foreign workers for the task.
The Council of Labor Affairs reportedly will meet on Monday to discuss FPG’s application for foreign workers, but Shih said he had no knowledge of this.
Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), an FPG affiliate at whose plants four of the seven fires occurred, said yesterday it would shut its Mailiao facilities for safety inspections in stages to meet government demands.
Its shares finally stopped falling after a 13 percent plunge over three consecutive days, rising 0.32 percent to end at NT$94.2 yesterday.
Shares of FPG’s three other core affiliates were mixed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday, amid investors’ concerns over their profitability in months ahead.
Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠) saw its stock rise 0.71 percent to NT$71, while Formosa Plastics Corp’s (台塑) shares were down 2.87 percent to NT$91.4 and Formosa Chemicals and Fibre Corp (台灣化纖) fell 2.26 percent to NT$86.6.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last