Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) yesterday promised to assist Taiwanese companies seeking to move production out of China as the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak continued to spread in that nation.
“We have already witnessed the first wave of Taiwanese companies returning home [last year] due to an ongoing trade conflict between the US and China,” Shen told reporters. “Now a second wave will [soon be] upon us as large US and European firms require [Taiwanese] suppliers to adjust their production in China in light of the spreading epidemic.”
The ministry would assist the suppliers with their relocation plans, as well as address companies’ concerns over scarcity of land and labor, Shen said.
The ministry would also help Taiwanese manufacturers looking to move production from China to Southeast Asia, with a focus on the nations targeted by the government’s New Southbound Policy, he said.
On concerns that supply-chain disruption in China could negatively affect Taiwan’s GDP growth, Shen said that it would depend on how the outbreak plays out this week and next, adding that Taiwanese firms are ready to negotiate an evolving situation.
On an apparent shortage of masks to prevent the potential spread of the coronavirus, Shen said that the ministry had been in talks with manufacturers, as well as upstream suppliers.
“We are producing about 3.2 million masks a day this week, a number that is to increase by 70,000 per day with support from the military,” Shen said.
Domestic production would be 10 million masks per day by the end of next month after the addition of 60 new machines, he said.
In related news, the InvesTaiwan Service Center yesterday announced that it had approved Zhong Yang Technology Co’s (中揚光電) application to participate in a government program to encourage local investment.
Zhong Yang, in which Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) holds about a 30 percent stake, plans to invest about NT$200 million (US$6.65 million) to expand its production capacity at the Taichung Industrial Park (台中工業區).
Zhong Yang is the only firm to date to have applications approved. The company last year pledged to invest NT$770 million to add new production lines in Taichung.
The center has approved more than NT$716 billion of investment by 170 companies since the program was launched at the beginning of last year.
It aims to increase that figure to more than NT$900 billion this year, Department of Investment Services Director-General Emile Chang (張銘斌) said.
The ministry yesterday approved a plan by Wu Jii Industry Co (梧濟工業), the nation’s largest steel mold maker, to invest nearly NT$300 million to upgrade its operations in Taichung, Changhua and Tainan via a similar government program.
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