CURRENCY
Foreign reserves rise
The central bank yesterday said Taiwan’s foreign-exchange reserves last month amounted to US$440.25 billion, an increase of US$1.83 billion from one month earlier. The central bank attributed the increase to returns from foreign-exchange reserves management. Appreciation of the euro and other reserve currencies against the US dollar also helped, the bank said. The market value of securities investments and New Taiwan dollar-based deposits held by foreign portfolio investors reached US$364.3 billion last month, accounting for 83 percent of foreign-exchange reserves, it said. The nation’s large foreign-exchange reserve is one of several reasons cited by the US to keep Taiwan on its currency-monitoring watch list.
MANUFACTURING
Airtac sales surge 17 percent
Airtac International Group (亞德客國際集團), a China-based pneumatic components supplier, yesterday reported NT$1.14 billion (US$37.89 million) in sales last month, a 17 percent surge from the same period last year. Aggregate sales in the first five months of the year soared 21 percent to NT$5.1 billion, buoyed by improving customer demand, the firm said in a stock exchange filing. Airtac, the second-largest pneumatic component maker in China, said its second plant in Ningbo is to start operations by the end of this year and to increase its output further. The company has raised NT$2.6 billion in new capital through the issuance of 10 million new shares for ongoing capacity expansion projects.
ENERGY
Nepal inks energy deal
Nepal has signed an agreement with a Chinese company to build the largest hydroelectric plant in the impoverished landlocked country, which suffers from a chronic energy shortage. Nepalese Minister of Energy Janardan Sharma on Sunday signed the agreement for China Gezhouba Group Corporation to build the long-mooted 1,200 megawatt Budhi-Gandaki hydroelectric project. Estimates put the project cost at US$2.5 billion. A financing agreement is to be signed later, ministry spokesman Dinesh Kumar Ghimire said. Water-rich Nepal has a mountain river system that could make it an energy-producing powerhouse, but instead it imports much of its electricity from India. Experts said Nepal could be generating 83,000 megawatts, but its total installed generation capacity stands at less than 2 percent of that. Demand for electricity has long outstripped supply in Nepal due to chronic under-investment and inefficiencies in the power network.
ENERGY
China wastes ‘green’ power
Increasing amounts of “green” electricity have gone unused in China as it struggles to integrate wind and solar power into a dated electricity network dominated by coal. The problem threatens to slow progress in clearing China’s choking urban smog and controlling the greenhouse gas emissions that make it the world’s top contributor to climate change. As international energy ministers gather this week in Beijing, China’s difficulty with “renewables” underscores questions over how quickly developing nations can transition to cleaner electricity. It also conflicts with a desire by China to fill the climate leadership gap left by US President Donald Trump’s move to withdraw the US from the Paris climate accord. China has more renewable power capacity than any other nation following a recent construction boom.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has appointed Rose Castanares, executive vice president of TSMC Arizona, as president of the subsidiary, which is responsible for carrying out massive investments by the Taiwanese tech giant in the US state, the company said in a statement yesterday. Castanares will succeed Brian Harrison as president of the Arizona subsidiary on Oct. 1 after the incumbent president steps down from the position with a transfer to the Arizona CEO office to serve as an advisor to TSMC Arizona’s chairman, the statement said. According to TSMC, Harrison is scheduled to retire on Dec. 31. Castanares joined TSMC in
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
FACTORY SHIFT: While Taiwan produces most of the world’s AI servers, firms are under pressure to move manufacturing amid geopolitical tensions Lenovo Group Ltd (聯想) started building artificial intelligence (AI) servers in India’s south, the latest boon for the rapidly growing country’s push to become a high-tech powerhouse. The company yesterday said it has started making the large, powerful computers in Pondicherry, southeastern India, moving beyond products such as laptops and smartphones. The Chinese company would also build out its facilities in the Bangalore region, including a research lab with a focus on AI. Lenovo’s plans mark another win for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who tries to attract more technology investment into the country. While India’s tense relationship with China has suffered setbacks