The Ministry of Economic Affairs and 20 overseas Taiwanese firms yesterday inked letters of intent to invest NT$37.8 billion (US$1.29 billion) in Taiwan, injecting some fresh momentum to the nation’s meager private investment amid global economic woes.
The figure represented an increase of 19 percent, from the NT$31.8 billion the ministry solicited last year under the same program targeting overseas Taiwanese entrepreneurs, mostly from China, to boost private investment.
“As the external economic situation is not good, we have to look for growth in the domestic market,” Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Francis Liang (粱國新) said during a forum arranged by the government to boost investment in Taiwan.
Fixed investment from the private sector is expected to shrink 1.03 percent this year from last year as LCD companies and memory chipmakers scale back equipment investment amid falling orders, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics forecast last month.
The newly promised investments came primarily from traditional sectors such as machinery tools, biotech, tourism and retail, while expansion in the technology sector, a pillar of Taiwan’s economy, stagnates.
Jinn Her Enterprise Co Ltd (晉禾企業), the world’s biggest manufacturer of screws and bolts, plans to spend NT$10 billion on building a logistics warehouse in Greater Kaohsiung, making it the biggest investor among the 20 firms that promised to divert their investment back home.
“We have been scouting around for a place to build our [fourth] logistics warehouse over the past several years,” company chairman Tsai Yung-yu (蔡永裕) told a joint media briefing yesterday. “We chose [to build a warehouse in] Taiwan because it is our home country and we hope to contribute to improving the country’s unemployment rate.”
The planned logistics warehouse would create 100,000 jobs in the screw-and-bolt supply chain in a new industrial center, initiated by Jinn Her, in Greater Kaohsiung, Tsai said.
He said the construction of the logistics warehouse would be completed within a year after obtaining government approval.
Jinn Her, which trades its A shares on the Shenzhen stock market, makes screws and bolts mostly in Chinese factories.
It is also worth noticing that Sino Horizon Holdings Ltd (鼎固控股), a Shanghai-based property development company, plans to invest at least NT$300 million in building shopping malls and restaurants in Taiwan.
Sino Horizon is owned by Jason Chang (張虔生) and his family, which also operates the world's top chip packager Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體). Sino Horizon is expected to list on local stock market by the end of this year.
Tailife Co Ltd (台勵福), which makes forklift trucks, marked another example. Tailife said it planned to spend at least NT$1 billion to build production lines to make motors and other key components used in forklift trucks.
After making home appliances in China for more than two decades, home appliances maker Airmate Electrical (Shenzhen) Co Ltd (艾美特電器深圳) plans to launch an initial offering in the local stock market later this year and to expand its research and development center in Taiwan, company vice chairman Tsai Cheng-fu (蔡正富) said, citing the excellent talent pool here.
Airmate also plans to expand its own-brand home appliances business in Taiwan, Tsai said. Airmate makes home appliances and motors for local household brands such as Tatung Co (大同), Sampo Corp (聲寶) and TECO Electric and Machinery Co (東元電機), but sells Airmate home appliances in China.
On Ireland’s blustery western seaboard, researchers are gleefully flying giant kites — not for fun, but in the hope of generating renewable electricity and sparking a “revolution” in wind energy. “We use a kite to capture the wind and a generator at the bottom of it that captures the power,” said Padraic Doherty of Kitepower, the Dutch firm behind the venture. At its test site in operation since September 2023 near the small town of Bangor Erris, the team transports the vast 60-square-meter kite from a hangar across the lunar-like bogland to a generator. The kite is then attached by a
Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準精密), a metal casing supplier owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), yesterday announced plans to invest US$1 billion in the US over the next decade as part of its business transformation strategy. The Apple Inc supplier said in a statement that its board approved the investment on Thursday, as part of a transformation strategy focused on precision mold development, smart manufacturing, robotics and advanced automation. The strategy would have a strong emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI), the company added. The company said it aims to build a flexible, intelligent production ecosystem to boost competitiveness and sustainability. Foxconn
Leading Taiwanese bicycle brands Giant Manufacturing Co (巨大機械) and Merida Industry Co (美利達工業) on Sunday said that they have adopted measures to mitigate the impact of the tariff policies of US President Donald Trump’s administration. The US announced at the beginning of this month that it would impose a 20 percent tariff on imported goods made in Taiwan, effective on Thursday last week. The tariff would be added to other pre-existing most-favored-nation duties and industry-specific trade remedy levy, which would bring the overall tariff on Taiwan-made bicycles to between 25.5 percent and 31 percent. However, Giant did not seem too perturbed by the
TARIFF CONCERNS: Semiconductor suppliers are tempering expectations for the traditionally strong third quarter, citing US tariff uncertainty and a stronger NT dollar Several Taiwanese semiconductor suppliers are taking a cautious view of the third quarter — typically a peak season for the industry — citing uncertainty over US tariffs and the stronger New Taiwan dollar. Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科技) said that customers accelerated orders in the first half of the year to avoid potential tariffs threatened by US President Donald Trump’s administration. As a result, it anticipates weaker-than-usual peak-season demand in the third quarter. The US tariff plan, announced on April 2, initially proposed a 32 percent duty on Taiwanese goods. Its implementation was postponed by 90 days to July 9, then
RSS