■FINANCE
Fubon Life to invest in TMC
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) said on Friday its life insurance unit would buy 80 million shares, or a 7.27 stake, in Taiwan Memory Co (TMC, 台灣創新記憶體公司) for NT$800 million (US$24.8 million). The company said it planned to raise funds for Fubon Life Insurance Co’s (富邦人壽) long-term investment in TMC in the fourth quarter of this year, but did not say how. In July, TMC registered with the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ commerce department with an initial capital of NT$500,000. The government-backed memory chipmaker is expected to initially raise NT$11 billion in funds from public and private investors. Besides Fubon Life, TMC has secured investments from chip-testing and packaging firms Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) and King Yuan Electronics Co Ltd (京元電子).
■TECHNOLOGY
Ballmer to visit Taipei
Microsoft Corp CEO Steve Ballmer will host a technology forum, dubbed “3 Screens and a Cloud,” in Taipei early next month, the company said on Friday. It will be Ballmer’s first visit to Taiwan after taking over Bill Gates as the company’s chief executive. During the forum, Ballmer is expected to share the company’s view on corporate strategies to remain competitive in the tech arena and how the Cloud platform would facilitate seamless Internet connection via handsets, PCs, TVs and other devices. Ballmer also plans to visit Microsoft’s local partners and to celebrate the company’s 20th anniversary.
■FINANCE
PRC to launch ChiNext
China will launch its long-awaited NASDAQ-style ChiNext board in Shenzhen on Friday, state media reported yesterday. Shang Fulin (尚福林), chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, announced the start date of the growth enterprise market at a forum in Beijing, Xinhua news agency reported. The first batch of 28 companies will make their debut on Friday, Xinhua said. Regulators hope the new market will help fuel start-ups and other companies with high-growth potential in the world’s third-largest economy, following the example of Wall Street’s Nasdaq.
■AVIATION
JAL seeking partners
Struggling Japan Airlines (JAL) is seeking a tie-up with low-cost carriers for its Asian operations, the Asahi Shimbun said yesterday. JAL, looking for another public bailout to keep flying, is putting together an emergency turnaround plan under the supervision of a government task force. In its cost-cutting efforts, JAL will expand code-sharing operations with budget carriers in Asia, replacing its less profitable flights for tourist destinations, such as Hawaii, Thailand and Indonesia, Asahi said. The move would enable JAL to focus on more profitable business flights to North America, Europe and China, the daily said without citing sources.
■TELECOMS
CEO not quitting over deaths
The CEO of France Telecom, who is under fire for continued suicides among company employees, said he would not resign. Didier Lombard said in an interview in Le Figaro yesterday that a captain couldn’t abandon the ship in a storm. He said he must ensure that France Telecom becomes a “human and prosperous” enterprise. His term runs until 2011. Le Figaro quoted him as saying he was “aghast” at the latest suicide. The company said on Thursday that an employee at its research and development center in Brittany had committed suicide at his home — the 25th in 18 months.
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
WEAKER ACTIVITY: The sharpest deterioration was seen in the electronics and optical components sector, with the production index falling 13.2 points to 44.5 Taiwan’s manufacturing sector last month contracted for a second consecutive month, with the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) slipping to 48, reflecting ongoing caution over trade uncertainties, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The decline reflects growing caution among companies amid uncertainty surrounding US tariffs, semiconductor duties and automotive import levies, and it is also likely linked to fading front-loading activity, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “Some clients have started shifting orders to Southeast Asian countries where tariff regimes are already clear,” Lien told a news conference. Firms across the supply chain are also lowering stock levels to mitigate
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
RESHAPING COMMERCE: Major industrialized economies accepted 15 percent duties on their products, while charges on items from Mexico, Canada and China are even bigger US President Donald Trump has unveiled a slew of new tariffs that boosted the average US rate on goods from across the world, forging ahead with his turbulent effort to reshape international commerce. The baseline rates for many trading partners remain unchanged at 10 percent from the duties Trump imposed in April, easing the worst fears of investors after the president had previously said they could double. Yet his move to raise tariffs on some Canadian goods to 35 percent threatens to inject fresh tensions into an already strained relationship, while nations such as Switzerland and New Zealand also saw increased
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