Formosa Plastics Group (FPG), the nation’s largest industrial group, said it aims to grow revenue by 6 percent year-on-year to NT$2.6 trillion (US$86.06 billion) this year on the back of an improving global economy.
“We are halfway through the review of our annual budget and we can see the confidence in the reports submitted by our subsidiaries,” FPG chairman William Wong (王文淵) said at the group’s year-end dinner on Thursday. “In general, we expect mild growth this year.”
Last year, the group’s local and foreign business divisions reported record-high revenue of NT$2.45 trillion, about 2 percent lower than the target it had set, FPG general administration director Ho Shui-wen (侯水文) said.
Revenue was 7.1 percent higher than the previous year, he added.
The group’s pretax profit last year soared 3.9 times to NT$210 billion from 2012, which was 3 percent higher than its target, Ho said.
As a result, the group agreed to offer its employees annual bonuses equal to 4.24 times their monthly salaries and an additional NT$10,000 this year.
The group aims to make higher net profits and to increase employees’ annual bonuses to five months salary next year, Sandy Wang (王瑞瑜), a member of the group’s executive board told employees.
FPG vice chairman Susan Wang (王瑞華) said the group will benefit from a more stable economic environment this year as conditions in Europe and the US improve.
FPG is also considering further expansion of manufacutring overseas, with potential destinations including Louisiana and Texas.
“We need to transport ethane, the raw material we need, from Texas to Louisiana, and we are studying building a pipeline between the two states,” Wang said.
Last year, sales at the group’s overseas divisions accounted for less than 20 percent of its overall revenue, but more than 30 percent of overall profit, Wang said.
However, Wang warned that the nation’s slow progress in signing free-trade agreements with the world’s major economies, such as EU, would have an adverse impact on local firms.
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