TAXATION
Revenue to GDP ratio up
Taiwan’s tax revenues to GDP ratio last year hit 13.4 percent, an increase of 0.5 percentage points over 2017, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The ratio gauges the proportion of a nation’s total output that is collected by the government through taxation and indicates the degree to which a government controls a nation’s resources. Taiwan’s ratio has hovered between 11 and 14 percent since 2000. However, other nations in the region did much better last year, with South Korea reaching 20 percent, Japan 18.2 percent and Singapore 13.5 percent, while European nations far exceeded those levels, the ministry said. Boosted by stable economic growth and rising stock market turnover, total revenue collected last year was NT$2.39 trillion (US$77.54 billion at the current exchange rate), up 6 percent from 2017, it said.
AVIATION
CAL ‘back to normal’
China Airlines (CAL, 中華航空) will resume its regular flight schedule today after a pilot shortage was resolved following the resolution of a week-long strike on Thursday last week. The airline canceled five flights yesterday, bringing the total number of flights canceled between Feb. 8 and yesterday to 214, the airline said. The airline has estimated its losses during that period, at NT$600 million.
CHIPMAKERS
TSMC to sue supplier
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Tuesday said it would seek compensation from a company that provided it with substandard raw materials that resulted in several hundred million US dollars in sales losses earlier this year, but it refused to give a name or specify the amount. It said the supplier should be held liable for its failure to detect heterogeneous polymers in the photoresist materials that caused the losses. The company’s statement came after a Chinese-language newspaper reported earlier in the day that Dow Chemical Co was the supplier and the chipmaker would seek NT$4 billion in compensation from the US firm. TSMC last month was forced to scrap tens of thousands of silicon wafers at its Fab 14B in Tainan, because of the defective raw materials. The production interruption cost it US$550 million in sales and led to a lower first-quarter sales forecast.
FOOD AND BEVERAGE
Beijing duck special offered
Cosmos Hotel TICC, a banquet and dining facility at the Taipei International Convention Center run by Taipei-based Cosmos Hotel & Resorts Group (天成飯店集團), has launched a Beijing duck promotion, communication official Blythe Chao (趙芝綺) said yesterday. It recently issued Beijing duck coupons priced at NT$1,480 each to allow guests to enjoy the famed delicacy at discounted prices, she said, adding that different discounts extend to Cantonese dim sum at the restaurant. Meanwhile, the group’s Cosmos Hotel Taipei (台北天成大飯店) has outperformed peers in terms of occupancy rates for the seventh consecutive year, thanks to its closeness to the Taipei Railway Station and relatively affordable rates, Chao said. The group’s newest property, the Grand Cosmos Resort Ruisui (瑞穗春天國際觀光酒店) in Hualien County, achieved an occupancy rate of nearly 80 percent over the Lunar New Year holiday and is almost fully booked for the long 228 Peace Memorial Day weekend, she said. The group spent NT$6 billion turning a large plot of land in Ruisui Township (瑞穗) into a hot-spring facility with 198 guest rooms and villas.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
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
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure