■CONSUMER GOODS
MOEA plans ‘Halal’ talk
The government will hold a seminar on July 29 on Halal certification, an Islamic product certification for products considered acceptable for consumption by Muslims worldwide, to help local companies explore Islamic markets. Halal certification is recognition that food, medical, cosmetics, machinery and other daily products are permissible for use by Muslims under Islamic law, a statement by the Bureau of Foreign Trade said on Thursday. Halal is an Arabic word that means “lawful.” The market for the certified products could generate business opportunities worth more than US$1 trillion, as the world has roughly 1.8 billion Muslims, the bureau said.
■SAFETY
Unsafe goods identified
More than half of the substandard products imported to Taiwan last month were goods made in China, an official at the Consumer Protection Commission said yesterday. Liu Ching-fang (劉清芳), director of supervision and coordination at the commission, said that the agency published warnings about 65 unsafe imported goods last month, including 34 from China. A total of 59 of the warnings concerned goods classified as commercial products, including 23 chemical industrial products, 13 electronics products and four toy products. The remaining six warnings fell into the category of food and agriculture products.
■AVIATION
AIDC celebrates cockpit
The Aviation Industrial Development Corp (AIDC, 漢翔航空) held a celebration at its complex in Shalu (沙鹿) in Taichung County on Friday to mark the completion of its 100th cockpit for the Sikorsky S-92 helicopter. The AIDC and aviation firms from other countries have joined US-based Sikorsky Aircraft Corp to produce the 20-seat helicopter, which is used for civilian purposes. The S-92 is known for being safe and reliable for cargo and passenger transport, search and rescue missions and surveying resources. Sikorsky has an order for 200 S-92 helicopters, which means AIDC expects to make another 100 for a total value of NT$7 billion (US$229.5 million).
■DEVELOPMENT
Investment plans revealed
Major domestic industrial investment projects will amount to an estimated NT$4 trillion (US$131.58 billion) over the next four years, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) said on Friday. If all goes smoothly, Liu said, the investment amount will surpass the NT$1 trillion mark this year alone. By industry, Liu said, NT$163 billiion would be invested in optoelectronics, NT$143 billion in the semiconductor sector, NT$130 billion in the steel industry and NT$40 billion in the petrochemical industry.
■ENERGY
Bureau promotes bulbs
Replacing incandescent light bulbs with power-saving bulbs all around Taiwan can save an estimated 800 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 500,000 tonnes per year, the Bureau of Energy said in a statement on Friday. The reduction in emissions is equivalent to planting 27.84 million trees. Taiwan sells some 22.2 million incandescent light bulbs every year on the domestic market, which consume 1.1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, the bureau said. The bureau is promoting a five-year program, starting this year, to replace the country’s incandescent light bulbs with power-saving bulbs or other high efficiency bulbs.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
AI: Softbank’s stake increases in Nvidia and TSMC reflect Masayoshi Son’s effort to gain a foothold in key nodes of the AI value chain, from chip design to data infrastructure Softbank Group Corp is building up stakes in Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the latest reflection of founder Masayoshi Son’s focus on the tools and hardware underpinning artificial intelligence (AI). The Japanese technology investor raised its stake in Nvidia to about US$3 billion by the end of March, up from US$1 billion in the prior quarter, regulatory filings showed. It bought about US$330 million worth of TSMC shares and US$170 million in Oracle Corp, they showed. Softbank’s signature Vision Fund has also monetized almost US$2 billion of public and private assets in the first half of this year,
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