The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday said the Japanese government was fully supporting the alliance between government-supported memory chipmaker Taiwan Memory Co (TMC, 台灣記憶體公司) and Tokyo-based memory chipmaker Elpida Memory Inc.
The remarks ended market speculation that Elpida might reconsider a plan to become a technological partner to TMC. The Taiwanese company announced on April 1 that it had picked Elpida as its strategic partner to jointly develop and manufacture new memory chips primarily for mobile devices based on the Japanese chipmaker’s technologies.
Early in April, Japan’s national broadcaster NHK reported that Japan was considering giving financial support to the cash-strapped Elpida in a possible attempt to avoid the risk of exporting Japan’s advanced semiconductor technologies to other countries.
“Cooperation between TMC and Elpida is going smoothly. The Japanese government is supportive of the collaboration and it believes this is a good business model,” Minister of Economic Affairs Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) told reporters after a closed-door meeting with TMC head John Hsuan (宣明智) yesterday.
Hsuan said earlier in April that TMC would provide manufacturing capacity for Elpida and possible capital injections into the Japanese chipmaker.
He said at the time that TMC would complete a business plan in the middle of April and hoped for a capital injection of as much as NT$30 billion (US$917 million) from the government, which would give it about a 50 percent share of TMC.
As of yesterday, there was still no sign of this business plan for TMC.
“We are confident about [the future of] TMC,” Yiin said in an apparent attempt to fend off growing concerns that rebounding memory chip prices may reduce local computer memory chipmakers’ willingness to partner with TMC by supplying their capacity.
Yiin said TMC was in talks with five to 10 potential investors from the information technology industry.
The company would start operations very soon after working out its business plans to solicit further capital injection from other investors beside the government, he said.
In March, the ministry announced a long-term plan to rejuvinate Taiwan’s struggling computer memory chipmakers.
The establishment of TMC is part of the plan to stabilize the industry by integrating output by the nation’s major computer memory chipmakers.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS