The US-China trade dispute poses a tough challenge for Taiwan, but the government’s quick response has helped turn the threat into an opportunity by facilitating a huge repatriation of Taiwanese capital, the minutes of the central bank’s June 20 meeting released yesterday showed.
Board directors shared the view that the trade friction has hit Taiwanese firms hard and fast, as seen by seven straight months of export declines before June.
Some firms moved high-end manufacturing back to Taiwan, while relocating lower-end production to Southeast Asia, they said.
The government has removed investment hurdles and rolled out incentives to lure Taiwanese capital from China and elsewhere, one director said.
So far this year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs has approved 98 applications, with investment valued nearly NT$500 billion (US$16.03 billion).
As more products are manufactured locally rather than overseas, the domestic supply chain would grow and flourish, the director said.
Another director said the swelling of capital repatriation also has to do with the adoption by many countries of the Common Reporting Standard to combat tax evasion.
As some returning investment cases involve domestic bank lending, financial authorities should pay attention to how this would affect loanable funds in the local market, the director said.
One director said that last year’s property transactions recovered to 2013 levels, but the number of vacant units has continued to pick up over the past few years.
The pressure to reduce housing vacancies had been building as seen in the lukewarm presale market, the director said.
The recovery in housing prices and transactions looks more like a return to normal instead of a boom in property sales and value, the director said.
Another board director said that construction and mortgage loans have reached seven or eight-year highs, and new or existing home prices have inched up for several quarters in a row.
Commercial properties and industrial land have also seen an upsurge this year aided by returning capital, the director said.
The director called for close monitoring of the real-estate market and potential loan concentration so that regulators can respond quickly, if necessary, before expectations for home price appreciation take hold.
RUN IT BACK: A succesful first project working with hyperscalers to design chips encouraged MediaTek to start a second project, aiming to hit stride in 2028 MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it is engaging a second hyperscaler to help design artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators used in data centers following a similar project expected to generate revenue streams soon. The first AI accelerator project is to bring in US$1 billion revenue next year and several billion US dollars more in 2027, MediaTek chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行) told a virtual investor conference yesterday. The second AI accelerator project is expected to contribute to revenue beginning in 2028, Tsai said. MediaTek yesterday raised its revenue forecast for the global AI accelerator used
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has secured three construction permits for its plan to build a state-of-the-art A14 wafer fab in Taichung, and is likely to start construction soon, the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau said yesterday. Speaking with CNA, Wang Chun-chieh (王俊傑), deputy director general of the science park bureau, said the world’s largest contract chipmaker has received three construction permits — one to build a fab to roll out sophisticated chips, another to build a central utility plant to provide water and electricity for the facility and the other to build three office buildings. With the three permits, TSMC
The DBS Foundation yesterday announced the launch of two flagship programs, “Silver Motion” and “Happier Caregiver, Healthier Seniors,” in partnership with CCILU Ltd, Hondao Senior Citizens’ Welfare Foundation and the Garden of Hope Foundation to help Taiwan face the challenges of a rapidly aging population. The foundation said it would invest S$4.91 million (US$3.8 million) over three years to foster inclusion and resilience in an aging society. “Aging may bring challenges, but it also brings opportunities. With many Asian markets rapidly becoming super-aged, the DBS Foundation is working with a regional ecosystem of like-minded partners across the private, public and people sectors
BREAKTHROUGH TECH: Powertech expects its fan-out PLP system to become mainstream, saying it can offer three-times greater production throughput Chip packaging service provider Powertech Technology Inc (力成科技) plans to more than double its capital expenditures next year to more than NT$40 billion (US$1.31 billion) as demand for its new panel-level packaging (PLP) technology, primarily used in chips for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, has greatly exceeded what it can supply. A significant portion of the budget, about US$1 billion, would be earmarked for fan-out PLP technology, Powertech told investors yesterday. Its heavy investment in fan-out PLP technology over the past 10 years is expected to bear fruit in 2027 after the technology enters volume production, it said, adding that the tech would
RSS