EVA Airways says profit may fall
EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空), the country's second-largest airline, forecast profit will fall 22 percent. Profit is expected to fall to NT$2.04 billion (US$59 million), while sales are predicted to rise 6 percent to NT$68.6 billion in the 12 months to Dec. 31 from a year earlier, the company said in a statement distributed by the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The airline didn't elaborate on the forecasts.
EVA returned to profit of NT$2.6 billion last year, helped by passenger and cargo demand in Asia and a port shutdown in the US, after posting a net loss of NT$3.2 billion the year before.
Intel CEO may cancel trip
The CEO of Intel Corp, the world's leading chipmaker, may postpone a planned trip to Taiwan due to concerns over the virus that causes severe acute respiratory syndrome.
Intel's Craig Barrett was slated to address the spring 2003 Intel Developer Forum in Taipei on April 14 and 15. "The concern is always there," Stanley Huang (黃逸松), Intel's director of marketing and technical services in Taiwan, told the Taipei Times yesterday. "We are evaluating the status of the disease. There has been no confirmation [of Barrett's attendance at the forum] yet."
GIO aims to rate Web sites
Internet portals, Internet service providers along with the government are working on an online content rating system to protect the youth from browsing inappropriate content, a government official said yesterday.
"Just like movies, we plan to rate the content in four categories," said Ho Chi-sen (何吉森), a section chief at the Government Information Office under the Executive Yuan.
The government proposal will request Web sites to post a rating tag on its home pages.
GIO is scheduled to have a public hearing Tuesday discussing details and legal issue about the Internet content rating system.
Chi Mei plans China plant
Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子), the nation's second largest maker of flat-panel displays, plans to set up an advanced liquid crystal module (LCM) plant in Shanghai, China, a Chinese-language newspaper reported yesterday, citing chairman Hsu Wen-lung (許文龍). Future production from the proposed plant will supply mainly to Greater Shanghai area, Hsu added.
Chi Mei currently have two flat-panel factories in Taiwan and one -- together with its joint venture International Display Technology Inc -- in Japan. The company's third flat-panel factory in Taiwan, using the fifth generation, or 5G, technology is expected to start production in the last quarter of the year.
Hsu said the company hasn't decided whether its planned fourth flat-panel factory will use 6G or 7G technology. "Probably we will [skip the 6G and] jump directly to the 7G technology," Hsu said.
Petroleum prices to stabilize
Despite the war in the Middle East, the state-owned Chinese Petroleum Corp (中油) said yesterday that the price of domestic petroleum will remain unchanged for the time being for the sake of stabilizing domestic oil and commodity prices.
Chinese Petroleum said that the second quarter is traditionally the low season for the crude oil market, but the war in Iraq has caused crude oil prices to shoot to 10-year highs, the company said.
NT dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded higher against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.042 to close at NT$34.75 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$287.5 million, compared with last.
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
New vehicle sales in Taiwan plunged about 37 percent sequentially last month as the long Lunar New Year holiday and 228 Peace Memorial Day holiday cut short the number of working days, along with the lingering uncertainty over import tax cuts on US vehicles, market researcher U-Car said in a report yesterday. New car sales last month totaled 22,043, slumping from 35,073 units in January and down 19.89 percent from 37,515 in February last year, U-Car data showed. Sales of imported luxury cars, led by Mercedes-Benz, plummeted about 45 percent to 3,109 units last month from 5,663 units in the previous month,
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