The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has approved the largest joint investment project in an export processing zone in the nation.
ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投資控股), Orient Semiconductor Engineering Inc (華泰電子), Thinking Electronics Industrial Co (興勤電子) and Hung Ching Development & Construction Co (宏璟建設) are to invest more than NT$40.6 billion (US$1.29 billion) and create an estimated 4,200 job opportunities, the ministry’s Export Processing Zone Administration (EPZA) said.
The four companies have chosen to invest at the Nantze Export Processing Zone (楠梓加工出口區) in Kaohsiung due to a renovation program launched last year to free up more land for companies to set up production, the EPZA said in a statement.
Up to 3.47 hectares of land have been freed up from a service center for workers in the export processing zone, a tennis court and a women’s dormitory, the EPZA added.
The companies are to build three plants, creating 200,000m2 of production space and an estimated annual output of NT$24 billion, it said.
A new service center for workers would also be built, as well as an ecological park in an effort to preserve the natural habitat there, the EPZA said.
“This is significant, because there was no [available] land in the past few years,” EPZA vice director of operations management Chao Chien-min (趙建民) told the Taipei Times by telephone.
The land shortage was the main reason constraining growth at the export processing zone, Chao said, dismissing other potential factors such as water and electricity supply.
The EPZA said it is focused on transforming the Nantze Export Processing Zone, which was established in 1969, into an intelligent zone by introducing new industries such as optoelectronics, flat panels, smart manufacturing systems and software.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six