China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), the nation’s only integrated steelmaker, yesterday said it would spend NT$1.75 billion (US$58 million) on setting up a wholly-owned unit in Greater Kaohsiung to process nickel titanium and special steel to make steel plates, bars and rods that are more resistant to corrosion.
The company will invest NT$872.5 million of its own money and borrow the same amount from banks to set up the subsidiary, China Steel Corp executive vice president Lin Horng-nan (林弘男) said by telephone yesterday.
Construction of the factories is to be completed by the end of June next year, with an annual capacity of 6,400 tonnes, Lin said.
The unit is to buy CSC special steel and titanium alloys from China Steel Precision Materials Corp (中鋼精密材料), a Chinese subsidiary in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province, Lin said.
Lin said steel plates, bars and rods made of special alloys in Taiwan are mostly imported, and the products are used for chimneys and storage tanks for factories.
Similar steel products are also used for building the Farglory Dome (遠雄巨蛋), small screws for Apple Inc’s iPhone 6 and dental implants, he added.
“We used to sell our special steel and nickel titanium to downstream companies for processing, but it is difficult to control the quality and the processing time of the end products,” Lin said.
The company also said yesterday that it would raise salaries by 2.7 percent, effective from April 1.
China Steel posted a pretax profit of NT$2.09 million last month, up 1 percent from NT$2.06 million the previous month and down 27.97 percent from NT$2.86 million a year ago, the company said.
The year-on-year decline was because its Vietnam unit, which started operating on Oct. 14 last year, was still recording losses, it said.
The company’s operating profit rose 21 percent to NT$2.16 million from NT$1.78 million the previous month ago, because of cheaper raw material costs for iron ore and coal, Lin said. However, the figure last month was 28.48 percent lower than the NT$3.02 million operating profit recorded the previous year.
China Steel shares rose 0.79 percent to close at NT$25.4 yesterday, outperforming the TAIEX, which was down 0.46 percent.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last