A realignment of the global electronics supply chain could benefit the local hospitality industry if the government uses the opportunity to repatriate capital from China, Formosa International Hotels Corp (FIH, 晶華酒店) said.
Repatriation of capital could boost Taiwan’s GDP growth by 1 to 2 percentage points a year and increase the number of business travelers by 5 to 10 percent, FIH chairman Steven Pan (潘思亮) told reporters on the sidelines of a shareholders’ meeting on Tuesday.
It could even reverse the persistent decline in business travelers over the past two to three decades, which was a result of local firms moving their manufacturing facilities to China, lured by cheaper land and labor costs, Pan said.
More than 70 Taiwanese firms based in China have filed applications to bring high-end production lines home to avoid US tariffs on Chinese goods, bringing in investments totaling NT$375 billion (US$12.02 billion) and creating 34,100 jobs, government data showed.
Those figures could increase as the government has provided low interest rates, tax credits and other incentives to promote relocation.
“Taiwan could become the second-largest beneficiary after Vietnam ... if the government plays its cards wisely,” Pan said.
FIH has already seen an increase in business travelers arriving in Taiwan for relocation meetings, he said.
Business travelers generally spend three times as much as leisure travelers, Pan said.
FIH would look at opening new properties at home and abroad, although the local market has grown overcrowded with new players joining almost every week, he said.
Shareholders approved plans to distribute a cash dividend of NT$11.075 per share from last year’s earnings per share of NT$10.80, suggesting a payout ratio of 102.55 percent.
FIH said it plans to offer dividends to shareholders on a quarterly basis.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to