Textile manufacturer Lealea Enterprise Co (力麗) on Saturday said it would set up its first overseas factory in Indonesia this year.
Chairman James Kuo (郭紹儀) has made investing in Indonesia one of Lealea’s strategic priorities and set the goal of launching operations at the Indonesian site in the second half of the year, the company said.
Taipei-based Lealea, which makes polyester filament yarns and polyester chips, signed a memorandum of understanding with PT Taroko Indonesia and is to spend up to US$50 million to acquire PT Taroko’s production facilities in Bandung, Indonesia’s third-largest city.
PT Taroko is a joint venture between Taipei-based Taroko Textile Co (大魯閣纖維) and Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠), a Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團) subsidiary.
Taroko Textile is selling the facility because it wants to diversify its interests beyond the textile sector and Nan Ya did not want to continue its investment.
Kuo sent several delegations to Bandung to evaluate the 50 hectare site and conduct an assessment on how to upgrade the facilities, the company said.
The Bandung plant will initially be involved in the fabric dying and finishing business before expanding to yarn making, Lealea said.
The company believes that demand for textile products in the Indonesian market is strong, and because textile exports from Indonesia to Japan and South Korea have duty-free status, the plant will export half of its production.
The Lealea Group (力麗集團), of which Lealea Enterprise is part, also plans to have another subsidiary, Li Peng Enterprise Co (力鵬), set up open warehousing facilities in the US later this year.
The facility will store the nylon chips and polyester chips that Lealea produces at its plants in Taiwan and Southeast Asia and will be able to accommodate about 2,000 tonnes of products.
Despite its overseas investment, the Lealea Group said it remains fully committed to its manufacturing operations in Taiwan to enhance its sustainable development.
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
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six