Polaris in Singapore approved
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday gave the green light to Polaris Securities Co’s (寶來證券) application to set up a branch in Singapore.
Securities and Futures Bureau Director-General Wu Tang-chieh (吳當傑) said the FSC approved the plan so Polaris could go ahead and expand its business footprint abroad.
Polaris is the first Taiwanese securities firm to receive approval to set up a branch in the city state, in keeping with the government’s liberalization and globalization policy, Wu told a press briefing.
Wu added that Polaris chose Singapore because of its tax system, financial expertise and large Chinese population.
Carbon market expanding fast
The global carbon market may expand by more than 15 times to US$1 trillion by the end of the next decade as countries, including Australia, limit greenhouse-gas emissions, Merrill Lynch & Co said.
The market’s value will probably exceed US$100 billion this year, compared with US$65 billion last year, Abyd Karmali, global head of carbon emissions at Merrill Lynch, said in an interview in Taipei on Tuesday.
Australia outlined a carbon trading system this month aimed at limiting emissions, joining the EU and neighbor New Zealand. The trading system in Australia is scheduled to start in 2010.
Japan, Taiwan and the US may follow suit, Karmali said.
Taiwan may create a carbon market in 18 months, as President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has pledged to reduce emissions, he said.
The nation’s carbon emissions in 2050 should fall to 50 percent of its 2000 levels, Ma has said.
Delegation to promote aid
A delegation of economic officials will promote Taiwan’s development aid projects in four Central American countries starting later this month, Taiwan’s embassy in Panama City said on Tuesday.
The delegation, composed of officials from the Department of Investment Services and other government agencies, will reaffirm the government’s resolve to help develop Belize, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama and provide the latest investment information during its stay in the countries, the embassy said in a statement.
The delegation will also offer information on the development projects to Taiwanese businesspeople based in the four countries who are willing to participate in the projects, commonly known as Jungpang or Co-prosperity Project, the statement said.
The delegation will carry out its mission in Panama from Aug. 3 through Aug. 7.
Corn price gains on oil hike
About US$3 of corn price gains since 2004 may be attributed to rising oil costs, with US$1 caused by ethanol subsidies, a study by three agricultural economists at Purdue University in Indiana showed.
Transportation costs, a weak dollar and changes in energy consumption trends fueled a tripling of corn’s price since 2004, researchers Wally Tyner, Phil Abbott and Chris Hurt wrote in the report. The analysis, a synthesis of 25 previous studies and new research, was released yesterday by the Farm Foundation, a nonpartisan agricultural-research organization.
Commodities speculation played little role in the price surge and increased food consumption in China and India aren’t as important as rising energy use in either country, the authors said.
NT dollar weakens
The NT dollar lost ground against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, declining NT$0.013 to close at NT$30.394. A total of US$784 million changed hands during the day.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
RSS