■ FSC approves Shinsei purchase
The Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday approved Shinsei Bank Ltd's purchase of a 31.8 percent stake in Jih Sun Financial Holding Co (日盛金控), the nation's 12th-largest financial group by assets.
The financial regulator also agreed that Shinsei could convert its purchase of 630 million Jih Sun Financial preferred shares into common shares in five years.
In May the Japanese bank reached an agreement with Jih Sun to invest in Jih Sun through a mix of common and preferred shares in a private placement.
After the conversion, Shinsei is expected to own a more than 50 percent stake in Jih Sun, which will make the lender the first Taiwanese financial holding company to be controlled by foreign investors.
■ Elpida mulls new factory
Elpida Memory Inc, Japan's largest maker of computer memory chips, said it may build a new factory and is considering locations in Japan and Taiwan to meet growing demand for semiconductors.
Elpida may build its next plant in Taiwan, the Asahi newspaper reported yesterday, without saying where it got the information.
The company is considering building a plant in Taiwan because of the favorable tax incentives offered here, the paper said.
Company spokeswoman Tomoko Kobayashi denied the report saying the company is looking at various locations for a prospective site but nothing has been decided.
``We are considering building a new factory because our Hiroshima plant will reach full capacity in fiscal 2008,'' Kobayashi said.
The paper said that the planned factory will aim at producing 100,000 300-mm wafers a month.
■ TAITRA to ink Peru agreement
The Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會) is scheduled to sign a cooperation agreement with the Exporters Association of Peru (ADEX) today to step up trade and investment information exchanges and mutual visits by trade delegations, a TAITRA official said yesterday.
ADEX General Manager Alvaro Luis Barrenechea Chavez and his TAITRA counterpart will ink the agreement on behalf of their respective organizations, the official said, adding that with more than 1,000 members, ADEX -- which was founded in 1973 -- is one of the leading industrial and business organizations in Peru.
According to official statistics, two-way trade exchanges between Taiwan and Peru amounted to US$462 million last year, up 26.36 percent year-on-year, making Peru the nation's third largest trade partner in South America behind Brazil and Chile.
■ Energy seminar to be held
A Taiwan-Canada seminar on energy development and environmental protection is scheduled to be held from Aug. 19-20 in Ottawa under the auspices of the Ottawa Chapter of the North America Taiwanese Engineers' Association (NATEA) and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada.
NATEA's Ottawa chapter chairman Yen Kung-chan (閻公展) said the seminar will focus on how to use environmental protection technologies to reduce various kinds of pollution which may be brought about by energy development.
Yen said government officials, industrialists, as well as scholars and experts from Taiwan and Canada will be invited to attend the conference to discuss issues concerning renewable energy development and environmental protection technology applications and share their experience in these areas.
■ NT dollar gains on greenback
The New Taiwan dollar turned strong against its US counterpart yesterday, gaining NT$0.157 to close at NT$32.740 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
Turnover was US$667 million.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) quarterly sales topped estimates, reinforcing investor hopes that the torrid pace of artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending would extend into this year. The go-to chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported a 39 percent rise in December-quarter revenue to NT$868.5 billion (US$26.35 billion), based on calculations from monthly disclosures. That compared with an average estimate of NT$854.7 billion. The strong showing from Taiwan’s largest company bolsters expectations that big tech companies from Alphabet Inc to Microsoft Corp would continue to build and upgrade datacenters at a rapid clip to propel AI development. Growth accelerated for
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