The business environment in Taiwan has deteriorated, as the new government has focused on wage and day-off disputes while failing to address a potential power shortage, the Chinese National Federation of Industries (CNFI, 全國工業總會) said in an annual white paper released yesterday.
“The failure to establish a balance is unreasonable and might disrupt companies’ operations and dampen their competitiveness on the world stage,” CNFI chairman Rock Hsu (許勝雄) told a news conference in Taipei.
The trade group, which consists of 155 member associations and represents a majority of local manufacturing businesses, raised 142 issues and 293 suggestions this year, significantly more than last year, to highlight its concerns two months after the transition of government power.
Hsu, who is chairman of notebook maker Compal Electronics Co (仁寶), voiced concerns that labor groups plan to stage an indefinite hunger strike to pressure the government to allow workers seven more holidays per year and to take two days off each week.
Labor officials have proposed revisions to labor rules, under which companies have to pay employees more for working overtime and holidays and days off.
Companies from different sectors have protested the proposal and threatened to downsize operations, if necessary, to cope with labor shortages or labor cost increases.
Hsu said working hours in Taiwan average 2,086 per year, shorter than the 2,142 hours in South Korea and the 2,392 hours for both Singapore and Hong Kong, already making the nation less competitive than trading rivals in the region.
The number of working days could shrink to four days per week in the next decade, as a growing trend toward automation allows companies to cut dependence on human labor, Hsu said, adding that spikes in labor costs would motivate such changes.
“All favor less work and more pay, but Taiwan cannot afford labor terms similar to the US’ and Europe’s” due to lagging economic fundamentals and per capita income, Hsu said.
In addition, the CNFI suggested the government reconsider extending the service life of existing nuclear power plants, allowing more time for alternative energy sources to fill a potential supply gap.
A stable power supply at reasonable costs is important for the smooth running of companies in different sectors, Hsu said, adding that he is willing to pay more to avoid a power shortage.
Increasingly high temperatures are also adding to the burden on the nation’s power grid, Hsu added.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to