EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson is to recommend next week that the European Commission open investigations into some Chinese textile imports, the first step to slapping limits on them, his spokeswoman said yesterday.
"After having a detailed look at the statistics available to us on imports from China, imports of textiles and clothing that is, Peter Mandelson decided that at the beginning of next week he will be advising the commission to open investigations and also, of course, to consult informally with the Chinese authorities," spokeswoman Claude Veron-Reville said.
Mandelson is to raise the subject at meeting with EU trade ministers in Luxembourg tomorrow, she added.
The EU's executive arm had been waiting to get enough viable statistics on Chinese textile imports since the beginning of the year to decide whether it was necessary to start the process towards imposing limits.
"At this stage, we have sufficient data to consider recommending measures," the spokeswoman said.
She explained that an investigation would be on a category-by-category basis.
On Jan. 1, a 31-year-old textile quota system expired, leaving producers in developed and developing states bracing for a wave of imports from China.
At the beginning of the month, Washington launched an investigation to see if booming Chinese textile exports were shaking up the US market.
China has reacted angrily to the groundswell for protectionist measures in the West against its textile exports, insisting that it should not be penalized for having more competitive industries.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
RSS