FOREIGN INVESTMENT
Minister to visit Vietnam
Minister of Economic Affairs John Deng (鄧振中) yesterday said he will visit Vietnam between August and the end of this year to discuss the renewal of an investment protection agreement. “The Taiwan-Vietnam investment protection agreement was signed in 1993 and it is necessary to renew the content of the agreement as soon as possible,” Deng told a media briefing. Deng said the Ministry of Economic Affairs sent a draft of renewal agreement to the Vietnamese government, pending Vietnam’s response. He said the anticipated bilateral-ministerial meeting with Vietnam is also expected to discuss the possibility of simplifying customs inspections.
AVIATION
Pact to boost passengers
A new cross-strait agreement aimed at opening Taiwan’s airports to Chinese transit travelers is expected to enhance Taiwanese airlines’ long-haul passenger load factor, with benefits limited to current routes for the time being, UBS Securities Asia Ltd said yesterday. UBS said the new agreement is expected to attract between 400,000 and 800,000 additional passengers a year, or between 10 and 20 percent of total Chinese visitors to Taiwan last year. After the new policy takes effect in the middle of this year, incremental traffic could translate into 1.6 percent and 2.5 percent additional revenue for China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) and EVA Airways Corp (EVA, 長榮航空) next year, the brokerage said.
ELECTRONICS
Unimicron shares up 4.56%
Unimicron Technology Corp (欣興電子) shares surged 4.56 percent yesterday as investors said the Taoyuan-based printed circuit board (PCB) maker might have bottomed out last quarter. In the first quarter, Unimicron posted an operating loss of NT$733 million due to continual losses from its new plant for Intel Corp and lower utilization rates for all its product lines stemming from Apple Inc’s seasonality and weak PC demand. Unimicro said business for this quarter would improve because of the recovering utilization from high-density interconnect (HDI) PCB and flexible PCB. However, CIMB Securities said the company’s IC substrate, the main source of its losses, would not see much improvement this quarter and might continue to report an operating loss due to weak demand and production bottlenecks.
TELECOMS
Far EasTone sets app target
Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) yesterday said it is targeting 1 million downloads of the company’s “friDay APP Assistant” app by the end of this year, which has been downloaded by 500,000 users since its launch in November last year. The company plans to open a “friDay APP Assistant” app store next month, hoping to provide 10,000 mobile games this year, Charlene Hung (洪小玲), executive vice president of Internet and commerce at Far EasTone, said on the sidelines of an event to highlight the company’s latest collaborations with more than 10 game publishers.
MACROECONOMICS
M2 outpaces M1B gauge
The nation’s M2 broad money supply gauge continued to outpace the M1B narrow indicator last month, as people channeled cash into time deposits, the central bank said on Monday. However, the two gauges’ growths last month were slower than the previous month. The narrow gauge, which refers to cash and cash equivalents, increased 5.85 percent year-on-year last month and lagged behind the M2’s 6.53 percent gain, the central bank said.
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
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