Tatung eyes China market
The electronics retailing arm under Tatung Co (大同), Tatung Consumer Products Taiwan Co (大同綜合訊電), is set to expand into China this year, Tatung chairman Lin Wei-shan (林蔚山) said yesterday.
Tatung Consumer Products Taiwan Co was aggressively planning to make inroads across the Taiwan Strait, and there could be visible results this year, he said.
On the local front, the retailer currently has 246 outlets nationwide and it plans to add as many as 20 stores.
The retailer has set a revenue target of a 30 percent increase this year to NT$13 billion (US$0.4 billion).
Tatung Consumers Products announced yesterday its latest offering was an electric bicycle model. The company believes people will be more interested in such bicycles because of the growing interest in a greener living environment.
Telecom sets spending level
The nation’s No. 2 telecom operator, Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大), said yesterday its landline affiliate Taiwan Fixed Networks Corp (台灣固網) had obtained its board’s approval to budget NT$1.6 billion for capital spending this year.
That represents an increase of about 23 percent from last year’s NT$1.3 billion.
The company would invest in network expansion and upgrades as well as on undersea cables expansion.
The board of Taiwan Fixed also approved a cash dividend of NT$0.94 per share for shareholders. That will cost the company a total of NT$1.98 billion.
Fubon Life premiums grow
Fubon Life Insurance Co (富邦人壽) posted a 24 percent growth year-on-year in first-year premiums to NT$205.7 billion last year, company president Cheng Pen-yuan (鄭本源) told reporters yesterday.
After reporting NT$10.8 billion in net profit for last year, or NT$7.2 per share, the life insurer remains cautious about this year’s prospects, predicting another 5 percent to 6 percent growth in first-year premiums for this year, Cheng said.
The company also plans to add another 3,000 sales agent by the year’s end to its 13,000-staff workforce, he said.
Perfect staff headed for Taiwan
A Chinese direct sales firm is planning to send about 10,000 employees on a trip to Taiwan in June, the Tourism Bureau said yesterday.
Perfect (China) Co (完美中國), which sells food supplement and skin care products, will use the trip as an incentive for its sales agents, Tourism Bureau chief Wayne Liu (劉喜臨) said.
“Working with enterprises like Perfect has become the key element in our efforts to promote Taiwan tourism to mainland visitors,” Liu said.
Last year, 12,000 employees from Amway China (安利中國) visited Taiwan on a similar incentive tour, generating about NT$700 million in business for the local economy.
The number of Taiwan-bound Chinese tourists reached 972,000 last year, a 195 percent increase over 2008, the bureau said, adding that as many as 1.12 million Chinese tourists may visit this year.
Central bank stresses rules
The central bank has asked banks to follow rules on foreign exchange and currency forwards businesses, it said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
The bank made the comments after meeting all lenders that conducted foreign exchange business earlier in the day to stress the importance of following rules and risk control.
Meanwhile, the New Taiwan dollar advanced by NT$0.010 yesterday to close at NT$31.970 against the US dollar on turnover of US$649 million.
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