Shinkong Synthetic Fibers Corp (新光合纖) on Saturday said it planned to expand its production in Thailand on expectations that demand for artificial fiber would increase from quarter to quarter this year.
Shingkong Synthetic Fibers, one of Taiwan’s leading textile suppliers, said it aimed to expand production capacity of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottle-grade resin at its Thailand plant by 10 percent to 20 percent, since the artificial fiber industry is expected to do better in the second half of the year than the first.
The company’s subsidiary in Thailand started operations in 1997. It also has production lines in Taiwan and China.
Shinkong Synthetic Fibers said the artificial fiber sector, including PET bottle grade resin, has showed signs of recovery since May and is expected to grow for the rest of this year.
CURRENT PRODUCTION
Currently, the Thailand plant produces 15,000 metric tonnes of PET bottle grade resin a month, and all of the products are sold on the Thai market. Taiwan’s production lines churn out 30,000 metric tonnes of PET bottle grade resin a month for both local and overseas markets.
Earlier this year, Shinkong Synthetic Fiber chairman Wu Tong-sheng (吳東昇) said that with the global economy on the way to recovery, the inventory level in the China market has been on the decline, adding that his company was likely to see its bottom line improve later this year given such favorable conditions.
Shinkong Synthetic Fiber last year posted NT$1.42 billion (US$47.33 million) in net profit, or NT$0.55 per share, compared with NT$1.59 billion, or NT$0.71 per share, in 2011.
In the first quarter of this year, the company’s earnings per share stood at NT$0.11, up from NT$0.04 over the same period of last year.
The textile maker is looking beyond the artificial fiber business, aiming to enter the telecommunication industry, Wu said.
It has filed an application with the government to bid for a 4G license to operate in Taiwan.
A total of seven business groups, including Shinkong Synthetic Fiber, Hon Hai Group (鴻海集團), Chunghwa Telecom (中華電信), Taiwan Mobile (台灣大哥大) and Far EasTone Telecommunications (遠傳電信), will be competing for 4G licenses at an upcoming auction.
4G LICENSE
Wu said that if his company secured a 4G license, it would begin to set up base stations next year, expecting its 4G network to become operational in the second half of 2015.
He said the company could break even in 2017 and start to make a profit in 2018 at the earliest.
According to Shinkong Synthetic Fiber, the 4G operations are expected to cost the company about NT$20 billion, including the NT$4 billion to NT$5 billion expenditure to build at least 3,000 base stations.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
ELECTRONICS BOOST: A predicted surge in exports would likely be driven by ICT products, exports of which have soared 84.7 percent from a year earlier, DBS said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 4 percent from 3 percent, citing robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related exports and accelerated shipment activity, which are expected to offset potential headwinds from US tariffs. “Our GDP growth forecast for 2025 is revised up to 4 percent from 3 percent to reflect front-loaded exports and strong AI demand,” Singapore-based DBS senior economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in an online briefing. Taiwan’s second-quarter performance beat expectations, with GDP growth likely surpassing 5 percent, driven by a 34.1 percent year-on-year increase in exports, Ma said, citing government
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of