Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團) — the nation’s largest industrial conglomerate — yesterday said that Yang Hung-chi (楊鴻志), president of the group’s steel mill in Vietnam, is to retire today.
His position is to be filled by chairman Chen Yuan-cheng (陳源成).
Previously an assistant vice president in Formosa Chemicals and Fibre Corp (台灣化學纖維), a major unit of the group that manufactures aromatics and styrenics, Yang became president of Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corp (台塑河靜鋼鐵) on Sept. 1, 2011, the group said.
“Chen will officially be the chairman and president of the steel mill starting tomorrow, not just an interim president,” an official with the group, who declined to be named, said by telephone.
Chen stepped in as chairman of Formosa Ha Tinh Steel on Nov. 13 last year, replacing group president William Wong (王文淵), who served as interim chairman of the steel mill from Aug. 1 through Nov 13 after Lin Hsin-i (林信義) resigned as chairman.
Chen also replaced Lin as a member of the group’s decisionmaking body on Nov. 13.
Chen, a former president of China Steel Corp (中鋼), the nation’s only integrated steelmaker, was hired by the group as vice chairman and chief executive of the steel mill on Aug. 1, the group said.
Formosa Ha Tinh Steel is now building two furnaces in Vietnam, with the first furnace to become operational between the end of this year and the beginning of next year, the group said.
The estimated operation date was pushed back because of anti-China riots that broke out in Vietnam in May last year, the group said.
The group’s partner — China Metallurgical Group Corp (中冶集團) — has recruited Chinese workers to build the steel mill in Vietnam.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained