Machine toolmaker Goodway Machine Corp (程泰機械) yesterday said it plans to allocate NT$2 billion (US$65.93 million) for the development of “smart” machinery in the coming two years in a bid to offset rising labor costs.
“We have to put effort into ‘smart’ machinery, as production costs will inevitably rise,” company chairman Edward Yang (楊德華) said at a media gathering in Taipei yesterday, citing the aging population as one of the industry’s challenges.
Goodway said it plans to build a new “smart” plant to satisfy growing demand from customers in the automotive industry in the near term, without giving a detailed timetable.
The company — which manufactures computer numerical control (CNC) machines for tier-one car component suppliers — is to make gears for transmission systems in electric carmaker Tesla Motors Inc’s lower-priced compact sedan Model 3 this year.
Commenting on the company’s other expansion projects for this year, Yang said that a new plant in Chiayi is likely to start trial production at the end of the fourth quarter.
The facility in the city’s Dapumei Intelligent Industrial Park is expected to generate a production value of more than NT$1 billion per year, Goodway said.
The NT$600 million plant is to manufacture mainly CNC machines for the aerospace and energy industries.
The company yesterday also provided a sales target of NT$8 billion for this year, compared with last year’s NT$6.48 billion, supported by improving demand in the global machinery industry.
From January through last month, the Taichung-based firm posted cumulative revenue of NT$2.7 billion, a 9.72 percent increase from the previous year, company data show.
Over the period, Taiwanese machine toolmakers shipped US$1.26 billion worth of goods overseas, up 13 percent from the same period last year, data compiled by the Taiwan Machine Tool & Accessory Builders’ Association (台灣工具機暨零組件公會) show.
Goodway shareholders last week approved a company proposal to pay cash dividends of NT$1 per share, based on last year’s net profit of NT$246.9 million, or earnings of NT$2.24 per share.
Sales dropped 9.4 percent from a year earlier due to sluggish global demand, and its net profit plunged 60.3 percent on the back of a NT$90 million foreign-exchange loss.
Goodway shares yesterday gained 0.96 percent to close at NT$62.8 in Taipei trading, underperforming the broader market, which rose 1.31 percent.
The stock has increased nearly 14 percent so far this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange data show.
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