Taiwanese yacht builders signed a letter of intent with the Kaohsiung City Government yesterday to increase their investment in the city and take advantage of plans that the city government has mapped out to facilitate their development.
John Lu (呂佳揚), founder and CEO of Horizon Yachts (嘉鴻遊艇) — the largest yacht builder in Asia and sixth-largest in the world — and chairman of the Taiwan Yacht Industry Association, signed the letter of intent on behalf of association members with Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊).
Lu said that although many Chinese cities, including Shanghai, Qingdao and Shenzhen, have sought to attract Taiwanese yacht builders with investment incentives, he prefers keeping his company based in Kaohsiung.
“The Kaohsiung sail boat industry has its competitiveness, as a cluster of builders has been forming here,” Lu said.
Addressing the signing ceremony, Chen said the development of a yacht-building hub, to be named the Asia Luxury Sail Boat Development District, would be one of the pivotal projects of Kaohsiung’s efforts to speed up its industrial transformation.
The sailboat-building district will be located on a 105 hectare tidal land area to which the city government will allocate NT$5 billion (US$160 million) for development, Chen said.
She added that the yacht-building district has also been included in a project approved by the Executive Yuan to develop a new “ocean-and-air” town in Kaohsiung.
Lu said that despite China’s beckoning, he and other Taiwanese yacht builders preferred to keep their roots in Kaohsiung because of the high-caliber workforce in Taiwan and a well-established research, production, marketing and delivery chain.
“The Asia Luxury Sail Boat Development District that will be developed in Kaohsiung could become the most complete and competitive yacht-building area in the world,” Lu said.
Taiwan’s yacht industry is a 40-year veteran in the yacht-building world, even though yachting is non-existent in Taiwan due to restrictive regulations.
Lu said Taiwan is the only country in which yacht builders build yachts on land, and the only yacht-building country in which yachting has until recently practically not been permitted.
It would not be impossible for Taiwan to turn into a yachting country if the government lifted a ban on the development of marinas and yachting, and added new statutes governing yachting, Lu said.
Anna Bhobho, a 31-year-old housewife from rural Zimbabwe, was once a silent observer in her home, excluded from financial and family decisionmaking in the deeply patriarchal society. Today, she is a driver of change in her village, thanks to an electric tricycle she owns. In many parts of rural sub-Saharan Africa, women have long been excluded from mainstream economic activities such as operating public transportation. However, three-wheelers powered by green energy are reversing that trend, offering financial opportunities and a newfound sense of importance. “My husband now looks up to me to take care of a large chunk of expenses,
SECTOR LEADER: TSMC can increase capacity by as much as 20 percent or more in the advanced node part of the foundry market by 2030, an analyst said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to lead its peers in the advanced 2-nanometer process technology, despite competition from Samsung Electronics Co and Intel Corp, TrendForce Corp analyst Joanne Chiao (喬安) said. TSMC’s sophisticated products and its large production scale are expected to allow the company to continue dominating the global 2-nanometer process market this year, Chiao said. The world’s largest contract chipmaker is scheduled to begin mass production of chips made on the 2-nanometer process in its Hsinchu fab in the second half of this year. It would also hold a ceremony on Monday next week to
State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) yesterday signed a letter of intent with Alaska Gasline Development Corp (AGDC), expressing an interest to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) and invest in the latter’s Alaska LNG project, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. Under the agreement, CPC is to participate in the project’s upstream gas investment to secure stable energy resources for Taiwan, the ministry said. The Alaska LNG project is jointly promoted by AGDC and major developer Glenfarne Group LLC, as Alaska plans to export up to 20 million tonnes of LNG annually from 2031. It involves constructing an 1,290km
NEXT GENERATION: The company also showcased automated machines, including a nursing robot called Nurabot, which is to enter service at a Taichung hospital this year Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) expects server revenue to exceed its iPhone revenue within two years, with the possibility of achieving this goal as early as this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said on Tuesday at Nvidia Corp’s annual technology conference in San Jose, California. AI would be the primary focus this year for the company, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), as rapidly advancing AI applications are driving up demand for AI servers, Liu said. The production and shipment of Nvidia’s GB200 chips and the anticipated launch of GB300 chips in the second half of the year would propel
RSS