The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday outlined its plans to boost exports, investments, infrastructure and consumption to weather the slower growth expected this year due to ongoing trade tensions and other unfavorable macroeconomic factors.
Regarding investments, Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) told a news conference in Taipei that the government is ready to welcome four Taiwanese businesses that are returning home: Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), the main assembler of Apple Inc MacBooks and the Apple Watch; Ching Feng Home Fashions Co Ltd (慶豐富), a home decor manufacturer; network equipment maker Accton Technology Corp (智邦科技); and another company that declined to be named due to business concerns.
“The [unnamed] company is in the traditional sector and is the second-largest supplier in its industry, Shen said.
The four companies are expected to bring in investments totaling NT$18.7 billion (US$605 million) and create about 3,000 jobs, while the ministry is helping 40 other companies with their return to Taiwan, Shen said.
As for exports, Shen said that the ministry would continue to expand the government’s New Southbound Policy and “five plus two” industrial innovation program to prevent a decline in outbound trade this year.
The government has also extended the Act for Industrial Innovation (產業創新條例), a program that provides tax incentives for research and development by another 10 years, Shen said.
To boost domestic consumption, the government would also provide subsidies to encourage the public to purchase energy-efficient home appliances and electric motorcycles, which would also ease pressure on the strained energy supply, Shen said, adding the measure would attract an additional NT$6.5 billion in consumer spending.
As for the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program, the government aims to increase its solar energy capacity by 1.5 gigawatts (GW) after meeting a previous two-year goal of 1.527GW, Shen said.
Swancor Holding Co Ltd (上緯) is expected to complete building offshore wind energy capacity totaling 120 megawatts, which would bring in NT$22.4 billion of investments, Shen said.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts