■CHINA
Economy to grow 8 percent
The Chinese economy will grow 8 percent this year and achieve more than 9 percent annual growth in 2011, Cheng Siwei (成思危), former vice chairman of the standing committee of the National People’s Congress, said yesterday. The government’s 4 trillion yuan (US$585 billion) stimulus package is having an effect and will aid a full recovery by 2011, Cheng told a financial forum in Ningbo, Zhejiang. “Only when China’s growth rebounds to 9 percent can we say the economy has recovered,” he said. “The economy will certainly be able to regain a growth rate of more than 9 percent in 2011.”
■BANKING
First Financial raises capital
First Financial Holding Co (第一金控 ), Taiwan’s sixth-largest listed financial services company, plans to raise as much as NT$3 billion (US$91 million) in a private placement of 120 million shares at an issue price of NT$25 each, to boost its capital structure, it said in an exchange filing on Friday. Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控), meanwhile, is in contact with four major Chinese banks on possible cooperation opportunities, the Economic Daily News reported yesterday, citing chairman Thomas Wu (吳東亮). The four banks are Bank of China Ltd (中國銀行), Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd (中國工商銀行), China Construction Bank Corp (中國建設銀行) and Bank of Communications Co (交通銀行).
■BANKING
Five US banks seized
Five US banks with total assets of about US$1.04 billion were seized by regulators, pushing this year’s tally of failures to 45 as a recession drives up unemployment and home foreclosures. Community Bank of West Georgia, in Villa Rica, Georgia; Neighborhood Community Bank of Newnan, Georgia; Horizon Bank of Pine City, Minnesota; MetroPacific Bank of Irvine, California; and Mirae Bank of Los Angeles were closed on Friday by state regulators, the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said.
■ELECTRONICS
Sony to open R&D centers
Sony Computer Entertainment Inc intends to set up research and development centers in Taiwan to work with Taiwanese companies to develop game products for its gaming consoles, the Chinese-language Commercial Times reported yesterday, citing unnamed sources. The paper said Sony would hold a press conference with the Ministry of Economic Affairs tomorrow to make the formal announcement.
■TOURISM
Longwaytour calls it quits
Longwaytour Travel Service Ltd (明泰旅行社), a Taipei-based travel agency that focused on Southeast Asia and Russia formally shut down earlier this month because of financial difficulties, the Central News Agency reported on Friday, citing unnamed employees. The report said the 20-year-old travel agency has incurred debt of more than NT$10 million, including NT$8 million in late payments to airline companies and NT$1 million for employee salaries.
■COMPUTERS
Court rules against IBM
IBM Corp won’t be able to block its former mergers and acquisitions chief from working at rival Dell Inc while a lawsuit against the executive works its way through the courts. A US federal judge on Friday rejected IBM’s request for a preliminary injunction against David Johnson. IBM is suing Johnson, claiming he violated a noncompete agreement by taking the job at Dell. IBM argues that Johnson has trade secrets of IBM’s that he could use to help Dell.
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
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,
POWELL SUCCESSOR: US Fed Governor Adriana Kugler’s resignation gives Donald Trump an opening on the board, potentially accelerating his decision on the next chair US President Donald Trump suddenly has a chance to fill an opening at the US Federal Reserve earlier than expected, after Fed Governor Adriana Kugler announced her resignation on Friday. It might also force him to pick the next Fed chair months sooner than he had anticipated. “The ball is now in Trump’s court,” LH Meyer/Monetary Policy Analytics Inc economist Derek Tang said. “Trump is the one who’s been putting pressure on the Fed to do this and that, and Trump says he wants to have his own people on. So now he has the opportunity.” Kugler’s exit unfolds amid unprecedented public pressure
RSS