Canada acts on OCTG dumping
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) on Monday initiated an antidumping investigation on oil country tubular goods (OCTG) made in or exported from Taiwan and eight other countries, the Bureau of Foreign Trade said yesterday, calling on firms making the products to take the Canadian government’s survey by Aug. 27, so they could apply for lower tariff rates.
It is crucial for every company to participate in the CBSA’s survey, or the investigator may judge “normal value” or “export price” of oil country tubular goods arbitrarily, which could cause unfavorable outcomes for Taiwanese firms, the bureau said.
Acer to adjust smartphone price
Acer Inc (宏碁), the world’s fourth-largest PC maker, will adjust the price of its new smartphone that is scheduled to be launched in Taiwan next month after taking a rival’s pricing strategy into account, Acer’s local marketing division director Samuel Chang (張世欣) said on Tuesday.
“With the other company entering such a low price band and using such a market strategy, we need to review our product and see if it has enough competitiveness in the market before we launch it,” Chang said of Asustek Computer Inc’s (華碩) low-cost ZenFone models, which are priced as low as US$99.
He declined to give prices or other details of the new Acer smartphone.
Compal eyes casing firm
Contract notebook computer maker Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) yesterday said it plans to invest NT$988.24 million (US$32.97 million) in a Chinese company that produces magnesium alloy or plastic-made casings for PCs and handsets, as part of its long-term investment strategy.
Compal has invested NT$343.51 million so far in the Chongqing, Sichuan Province-based Chang Bao (昶寶), which has capital of NT$889.55 million and plans to raise additional capital of about NT$2.69 billion including Compal’s share, according to a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Computer show coming up
The Taipei Computer Applications Show, one of the nation’s major consumer electronics exhibitions, is set to open on Thursday next week and run through Aug. 4, the Taipei Computer Association (TCA) said on Wednesday, adding that about 200 electronics suppliers at home and abroad would man a total of 1,100 booths to showcase their devices.
The association said that this year’s show, to be held at the Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall 1, would feature smart electronic gadgets, including mobile devices, computer systems, digital imaging products, digital entertainment and related software developments.
A gaming seminar is to be held alongside the event, in which several international game developers, such as US-based Blizzard Entertainment and Japan’s CAPCOM, are to share their software development experiences.
Loan increase on target
Domestic banks increased loans by NT$32.3 billion (US$1.07 billion) to companies in the creative industry for the first six months of this year, achieving 64.6 percent of the NT$50 billion target set for the year, the Financial Supervisory Commission said yesterday.
The commission has encouraged such loans through a contest among banks which aims to more than double cumulative lending to NT$360 billion in 2016, from NT$181.7 billion late last year.
There were 2,164 successful loan applications in the first half, the commission said.
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