Bicycle maker Giant Manufacturing Co (巨大) yesterday secured approval from the Ministry of Economic Affairs to invest more than NT$5 billion (US$161.8 million) in the local market, which would create more than 290 jobs, the ministry said in a statement.
Giant is to become the latest firm to join the government’s three-year Welcome Taiwanese Companies Abroad to Invest in Taiwan Action Plan (歡迎台商回台投資行動方案), which provides firms with assistance in the areas of taxation, financing, land, utilities and labor to encourage them to relocate back to Taiwan.
The ministry said that it has approved 13 companies’ applications to join the program.
Photo: CNA
Those companies have collectively pledged NT$37.4 billion in inbound investments and vowed to create a total of more than 4,200 jobs, it said.
“Currently, 10 companies’ applications are awaiting review, while more than 30 firms are considering joining the program. The number of applicants is expected to continue increasing,” the ministry said.
Giant, which has eight production bases worldwide, has decided to invest in research, production and marketing in Taiwan due to high tariffs that have resulted from a US-China trade spat and EU anti-dumping tariffs on electric bicycles exported from China, the ministry said.
The company, headquartered in Taichung’s Dajia District (大甲), plans to adjust its manufacturing capacity and expand intelligent production lines at its Dajia plant, as well as build a new research and development facility in the Taichung Science Park (台中科學園區) and an automated logistics center in Dajia, the ministry 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
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day