Formosa Plastics Group’s (FPG, 台塑集團) four main units yesterday said they expected next year’s outlook to be flat or slightly weaker than this year because the global economy is still sluggish.
The companies also said they were decreasing their dependence on the Chinese market and would instead pay attention to other emerging markets.
The four main units are Formosa Plastics Corp (台塑), Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化), Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp (台灣化纖) and Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠).
The group's four major units posted a combined consolidated revenue of NT$137.67 billion (US$4.73 billion) last month, up 3.2 percent from a month ago and a 4.3 percent increase year-on-year.
Formosa Plastics chairman Jason Lin (林健男) said that the European debt crisis still remained a threat, reducing the the global economy’s momentum.
More factories are going to complete their annual repairs, increasing the supply of plastic products, according to Lin.
Furthermore, Lin said the market in China has not yet recovered to its previous level, causing the prices of plastic products to remain low. As a result, he did not expect the company’s revenue to increase significantly in the near future.
Formosa Plastics posted NT$14.78 billion in sales last month, up 3.8 percent from both a month ago and a year ago.
Nan Ya chairman Wu Chia-chau (吳嘉昭) said that he would feel grateful if the economic condition did not deteriorate further, and he did not know when the economy would start to improve.
Wu said the company’s EG-1 factory would start its annual repairs this month, decreasing production capacity.
Furthermore, Wu said the market condition for electronic materials was dire, decreasing the profitability of the company. The company is thus expected to see lower revenue in the fourth quarter than in the third quarter.
Last month, the company reported NT$14.8 billion in sales, up 4.6 percent from a month earlier and 5.8 percent from the previous year.
Formosa Chemical chairman Hong Fu-yuan (洪福源) echoed Wu’s economic prospects, adding that the global economy had bottomed out and would not deteriorate further.
Hong said that he expected the company to obtain higher profits in the fourth quarter than the third quarter, while the production in February may decrease because of the Lunar New Year.
Formosa Chemicals posted NT$25.04 billion in sales last month, up 12.8 percent month-on-month and 31.1 percent year-on-year.
Meanwhile, Formosa Petrochemical general manager Tsao Mihn (曹明) said that the unstable situation in the Middle East would keep oil prices from decreasing. Thus, he expected oil prices to remain stable and the company to continue making a small profit from the market.
Sales were NT$83.03 billion last month, up 0.3 percent from October and 21 percent higher than the same period of last year, the company said.
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