Chung Hung Steel Corp’s (中鴻) shares rose yesterday after an anti-dumping investigation by the US Department of Commerce ruled that the company had not engaged in any unfair practices.
Chung Hung shares rose 0.96 percent to close at NT$8.39 with 1.1 million shares changing hands, outperforming the broader market, in which the TAIEX closed up 0.24 percent at 8,577.01.
The stock attracted buying soon after the local bourse opened in the wake of a preliminary decision issued by the department and moved above its previous closing level, where it remained until the end of the session.
In a preliminary ruling, the department said that Chung Hung had not violated any US anti-dumping rules when it sold oil country tubular goods (OCTG), used by oil and natural gas producers, on the US market.
However, other Taiwanese OCTG exporters, including Tension Steel Industries Co (天聲), were found to have employed dumping practices and face an anti-dumping tariff of 2.65 percent imposed by the department in its preliminary decision.
In early July last year, US steel manufacturers filed a petition with the department in which they accused their counterparts in nine countries, including Taiwan and South Korea, of dumping OCTG in the US market.
The department and the US International Trade Commission conducted their own investigations into the complaint. In mid-August, the commission ruled in a preliminary decision that OCTG exporters from the nine countries named had violated US anti-dumping laws.
The commission’s decision prompted the department to continue with its investigation.
The department found that South Korean steel oil pipe manufacturers named in the investigation had not engaged in unfair trading practices.
The department is to continue its investigations and is scheduled to hand down a final decision on anti-dumping tariffs on July 7.
Chung Hung has said the company would cooperate with US authorities in the probe.
Taiwan exports about 100,000 tonnes of OCTG to the US per year, of which Chung Hung accounts for between 30,000 tonnes and 40,000 tonnes.
The commission is expected to issue its final ruling on Aug. 21 to determine whether the OCTG producers imposed material damage on US manufacturers.
The department is set to announce an anti-dumping order, based upon the commission’s decision, on Aug. 28 at the earliest.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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