The Civil Aeronautics Adminis-tration (CAA) is planning to allow private companies to operate commercial airports in an effort to help the government balance its books.
The CAA will soon invite companies from the private sector to offer suggestions on privatizing airports, officials from the administration said.
Under current regulations, only government agencies or local governments are allowed to operate airports.
According to the Ministry of Audit, 15 of the nation's 18 airports have been losing money in recent years. Among them, only Chiang Kai-shek International Airport, Hsiao-kang Airport in Kaohsiung and Taipei's Sungshan Airport have been making money.
The combined deficit of the 15 other airports, most of which are located in offshore areas, exceeded NT$900 million (US$27.5 million) last year, ministry officials said.
CAA officials attributed declining business in the domestic air-service market mainly to the opening of the second north-south freeway.
The opening of the high-speed railway along the nation's western coast in October is expected to further dent the money-losing domestic air service business if remedial measures are not adopted shortly, they added.
Late last year, the legislature asked the CAA to conduct a study and come up with a remedial plan within 10 months.
Against this backdrop, the CAA began considering allowing private companies to run airport operations without compromising the government's jurisdiction over navigation and control towers, as well as airport security and quarantine affairs, the officials said.
Allowing private companies, including foreign firms, to run certain aspects of the airports will help diversify the airports' operations, they said.
It is hoped that suggestions and opinions from the private sector on privatizing airports can be referred to the Ministry of Transportation and Communications by the end of this month for approval, facilitating the CAA's efforts to revise the law and submit them to the legislature next month for approval, the CAA officials said.
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