Panasonic opens Taoyuan plant
Panasonic Taiwan yesterday celebrated the completion of its new factory in Taoyuan County for production of ALIVH multi-layer resin boards to be used for high-functionality terminals, such as smartphones.
“The global mobile phone market is undergoing a rapid shift from standard phones to smartphones, where major growth is anticipated,” Panasonic Taiwan said in a statement. “In order to meet the growing demand for circuit boards for these high-functionality terminals, Panasonic is striving to increase its overseas production capacity for its original ALIVH multi-layer resin boards.”
In August last year, Panasonic Taiwan expanded its production capacity at its plant in New Taipei City (新北市) to meet rising demand. The new plant in Taoyuan County is ready to enter mass production, the company said.
Foreign investment target up
The Ministry of Economic Affairs announced on Tuesday that it adjusted upward its goal for attracting foreign investment this year from US$9.2 billion to US$10 billion.
The ministry has also set the goal for domestic private investment at NT$1.1 trillion (US$37.2 billion) this year.
As of the end of last month, 113 investment projects had been approved, worth a total of NT$64.9 billion, accounting for 5.9 percent of the annual target and representing an increase of 18.54 percent year-on-year.
FIHC to manage European hotel
Formosa International Hotels Corp (FIHC, 晶華國際酒店集團) — Taiwan’s largest listed hotel operator, which runs the Regent Taipei (晶華), Silks (晶英) and Just Sleep (捷絲旅) — has signed an agreement with Adriatic Marinas, a European developer, to manage a new luxury waterfront hotel.
The Regent Porto Montenegro is scheduled to open in May 2014 and the 80-room hotel will offer 35 guest rooms and 45 suites with interiors designed by renowned designer Pisano Atelier, according to a statement on Tuesday.
TSMC mulls NT$18bn bonuses
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said on Tuesday its board of directors had proposed to distribute NT$17.98 billion in profit sharing and bonuses to employees, including NT$8.99 billion in cash bonuses.
TSMC’s directors proposed a plan to issue a NT$3 cash dividend. The dividend yield was 3.88 percent, based on the stock’s closing price on Tuesday. They also approved a plan to appropriate NT$42.21 billion for capacity expansion and an additional NT$7.25 billion for research and development, according to a company statement.
TSMC reported NT$134.20 billion in net profit, or NT$5.18 per share, for last year.
Chimei up after conflict solved
Chimei Innolux Corp (奇美電子), the nation’s biggest LCD panel maker, saw its share price gain 4.6 percent yesterday, the largest increase since Feb. 3, after the company said on Tuesday a wage dispute in Ningbo, China, had been resolved.
As many as 50 new workers at Chimei’s Ningbo plant did not understand the company’s overtime payment schedule and asked for clarification, according to Howile Peng (彭峻豪), a media liaison official.
NT rises on rebounding euro
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the US currency yesterday, adding NT$0.06 to close at NT$29.535, as traders took hints from a rebound in the euro to dump the greenback in the local foreign exchange market, dealers said.
Turnover totaled US$778 million during the trading session.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained