The central bank yesterday said the New Taiwan dollar has been more stable than the South Korean won over the past three-and-a-half years, which has helped local exporters to reduce foreign exchange risk.
The comments came after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀) last Friday criticized government agencies, including the central bank, of not doing enough to protect local companies from the impact of strong NT dollar gains against the US dollar.
In response, the central bank said in an e-mailed statement that it was not allowed to control the foreign exchange rate and that the bank opted for the policy of keeping the local currency at a managed floating rate.
In the more than three years since Dec. 31, 2007, the NT dollar’s fluctuation rate against the greenback was 4.15 percent, much tamer than the won’s rate of 14.51 percent, the statement said.
As the won’s fluctuation rate was 3.5 times higher than that of the NT dollar, Taiwanese firms in fact enjoyed lower currency exchange risks and that boosted their export business, the central bank said.
Chang said the foreign -exchange rate could make or break a company.
He said the South Korean government had done a better job in capping the appreciation of the won against the US dollar to protect its companies over the past year.
“As Taiwanese exporters book costs in New Taiwan dollars, the foreign exchange rate can affect their competitiveness,” Chang said.
The Japanese government has also sought to ease the strains of a strong yen recently, not to mention Beijing’s tough stance on keeping the yuan steady even under massive pressure from the US, Chang said.
Taiwan and South Korea -are competitors in similar categories of export products, and the central bank said it understood the concerns of Taiwanese companies, but said it could not manipulate the NT dollar because it had adopted a “managed floating” mechanism.
Taiwan and South Korea are long-time rivals in the technology field.
South Korean bigwigs such as Samsung Electronics Co and LG Electronics Inc manufacture products from handsets and LCD panels to chips and computers, products that are also manufactured by Taiwanese firms, including TSMC, HTC Corp (宏達電) and Acer Inc (宏碁).
Although a stronger NT dollar can impact companies’ profitability, on the other hand, Taiwan enjoys imported goods at a cheaper rate and that helps stabilize prices of domestic consumables, the statement said.
Taiwan’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) expanded 1.43 percent during the January to July period, compared to South Korea’s 4.4 percent, according to central bank statistics.
Taiwan’s CPI climbed 0.96 percent last year, while South Korea’s advanced 2.93 percent. In 2009, Taiwan’s CPI contracted 0.87 percent, but South Korea’s rose 2.83 percent.
The central bank said it would closely monitor the currency fluctuation, but intervention would only come when there are abnormalities such as huge capital inflow or outflow in the market that sends the NT dollar soaring or dropping on a great level.
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
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
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