Taiwan Land Development Corp (TLDC, 台灣土地開發) has approved plans to set up a task force to scout investment opportunities in Vietnam to meet customer demand and support the government’s New Southbound Policy.
With a focus on the development of government-owned industrial parks, the Taipei-based company said it is seeking to replicate its successful experience in Taiwan in the Southeastern Asian nation.
“The task force is to act as a launch pad for the firm’s southward expansion,” TLDC chairman Chiu Fu-sheng (邱復生) said on Wednesday after the company’s board gave a unanimous support for the outreach plans.
The task force would allow TLDC to take advantage of Vietnam’s fast-growing economy, Chiu said.
Vietnam’s GDP expanded 7.46 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of the year, representing its strongest third-quarter growth since 2010, and higher than the previous quarter’s 6.28 percent growth, statistics released yesterday showed.
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ANZ) economists attributed the growth to strength in both exports and household spending, as well as contributions from the real-estate sector.
The TLDC board arrived at the decision after independent board director and former minister of the interior Lee Hong-yuan (李鴻源) gave a report of his recent trip to Vietnam, the company said, adding that Lee is to head the task force.
Chiu said some of the company’s clients, especially in the manufacturing industry, have asked for help sourcing plots in Vietnam to meet their capacity expansion needs, because the available land in Taiwan is too small and limiting.
TLDC is eyeing 500 hectare plots for potential industrial parks, Chiu said.
The company also plans to build commercial and residential complexes in Vietnam, he said.
Vietnam’s young population, with an average age of 27 on, is supportive of the southward expansion strategy, he added.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu