Tire maker Cheng Shin Rubber Industry Co (正新橡膠), which sells its products under the Maxxis brand, said its new plant in India is to start production in June, as it eyes business opportunities in the region.
New motorcycle sales in India are expected to reach about 18 million units this year, company vice president Liao Cheng-yao (廖正耀) told an investors’ conference earlier this month.
With an annual capacity of 6 million motorcycle tires, the plant in India’s Gujarat Province will mainly produce tires for its Japanese customers.
Cheng Shin, the world’s 10th-largest tire manufacturer, said the Indian plant could break even in three years.
The company is also expanding in Indonesia, but plans for a new motorcycle tire plant to start operating in the third quarter might be delayed as it is still awaiting permission from local authorities.
The plant, which is based in West Java’s Greenland International Industrial Center, will have an annual capacity of 6 million tires, Cheng Shin said.
The two ongoing expansion projects are expected to raise the revenue contribution of motorcycle tires, which accounted for 13.9 percent of sales last year, the firm said, without elaborating.
Car tires remained Cheng Shin’s main source of revenue last year, accounting for 44.4 percent of its total sales, while truck tires contributed 17 percent, company data showed.
The Changhua-based company — the nation’s largest tire maker — operates 10 plants in Taiwan, China, Vietnam and Thailand.
Cheng Shin’s board of directors yesterday approved plans to distribute cash dividends of NT$3 per share, which translate into a payout ratio of 73.3 percent, the company said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
The company posted a net profit of NT$13.25 billion (US$439.5 million), or NT$4.09 per share, last year, up 3.7 percent from previous year, while sales edged up 0.56 percent to NT$117.39 billion, company data showed.
Based on Cheng Shin’s stock price, which closed at NT$62.10 yesterday, the proposed cash dividend would translate into a dividend yield of 4.83 percent.
The tire manufacturer is to hold its annual shareholders’ meeting at the company’s headquarters on June 15.
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves hit a record high at the end of last month, surpassing the US$600 billion mark for the first time, the central bank said yesterday. Last month, the country’s foreign exchange reserves rose US$5.51 billion from a month earlier to reach US$602.94 billion due to an increase in returns from the central bank’s portfolio management, the movement of other foreign currencies in the portfolio against the US dollar and the bank’s efforts to smooth the volatility of the New Taiwan dollar. Department of Foreign Exchange Director-General Eugene Tsai (蔡炯民)said a rate cut cycle launched by the US Federal Reserve
Taiwan’s rapidly aging population is fueling a sharp increase in homes occupied solely by elderly people, a trend that is reshaping the nation’s housing market and social fabric, real-estate brokers said yesterday. About 850,000 residences were occupied by elderly people in the first quarter, including 655,000 that housed only one resident, the Ministry of the Interior said. The figures have nearly doubled from a decade earlier, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said, as people aged 65 and older now make up 20.8 percent of the population. “The so-called silver tsunami represents more than just a demographic shift — it could fundamentally redefine the
Businesses across the global semiconductor supply chain are bracing themselves for disruptions from an escalating trade war, after China imposed curbs on rare earth mineral exports and the US responded with additional tariffs and restrictions on software sales to the Asian nation. China’s restrictions, the most targeted move yet to limit supplies of rare earth materials, represent the first major attempt by Beijing to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over foreign companies to target the semiconductor industry, threatening to stall the chips powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. They prompted US President Donald Trump on Friday to announce that he would impose an additional