Toray Group, Japan’s largest manufacturer of protective film for display panels, yesterday opened a new plant in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Greater Kaohsiung’s Lujhu (路竹) to expand its capacity and global market share.
Toray, which has a local subsidiary in Taiwan — Toray Advanced Film Kaohsiung Co — plans to use the new plant to supply up to 17,000 tonnes of protective films by June to meet the growing global demand for LCD displays, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said.
The ministry said Toray’s NT$2.4 billion (US$82.84 million) investment in Taiwan would help strengthen the optoelectronics industry and create more than 100 job opportunities.
Christophe Lai (賴作松), chief executive officer of the Executive Yuan’s Invest-in-Taiwan industry promotion center, yesterday said major Taiwanese LCD panel makers — AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) and Innolux Corp (群創光電) — are clients of Toray and are heavily dependent on the company for materials to manufacture their display products.
“Toray chose to expand its capacity by investing in Taiwan because the Taiwanese government provides better intellectual property protection for businesses and their products,” Lai said by telephone.
Toray sees Taiwan’s overall investment environment as generally better than Singapore’s and Hong Kong’s as Taiwan’s Trade Secrets Act (營業秘密法) and Patent Act (專利法) ensure the safety of companies’ trade secrets and trademarks, Lai said.
Investing in Taiwan can also enhance Toray’s communication with local clients and help reduce its manufacturing cost, Lai added.
Currently, Taiwan’s business tax rate is 17 percent, the same as that in Singapore but much lower than China’s 25 percent and South Korea’s 22 percent, he said.
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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