Wei Chuan Foods Corp (味全食品工業), a major food manufacturers in Taiwan, aims to maintain its overall capital expenditure this year between NT$1.5 billion and NT$2 billion (US$50.01 million and US$66.68 million), to ensure food safety and continue expansion in China.
Wei Chuan, a member of the Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團), yesterday held its annual general meeting at its Wei Chuan Pushin Ranch in Taoyuan County.
It was the first time that Wei Chuan chairman Wei Yin-chun (魏應充) hosted the meeting and faced shareholders since the company was implicated in the production of adulterated cooking oil last year.
“The issue has made the company pay more attention to the quality of materials for making our products,” Wei told reporters after the meeting.
Wei Chuan has decided to invest more than NT$100 million this year to build up a quality assurance and inspection center — its second — in Yunlin County in a major portion of its domestic capital expenditure.
In China, Wei Chuan expects to accelerate market development in the northeastern, southern, central and southwestern regions, Wei Yin-chun said.
The food-safety issue last year prompted Wei to raise employee wages, hoping it would help keep talent and inspire better performance.
Shareholders yesterday approved Wei Chuan’s plan to distribute a cash dividend of NT$0.6 per share — the same level as last year — based on last year’s net profit of NT$872.89 million, or NT$1.72 per share.
Wei Chuan shares rose 0.22 percent to close at NT$45.1 yesterday.
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
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group