The European Chamber of Commerce Taipei (ECCT) said Chris James, president and chief executive officer of Allianz Taiwan Life Insurance Co (安聯人壽), would replace Peter Weiss as chairman of its board of directors next year after the trade organization held its annual general meeting and a new board meeting yesterday.
Weiss, president and chief executive of Siemens Limited Taiwan (台灣西門子), was elected vice chairman at the board meeting, while Michel Darrieus, president of Air Liquide Far Eastern Ltd (亞東工業氣體) was re-elected its treasurer, ECCT said in an e-mailed statement.
In an annual report delivered to members yesterday, ECCT said the chamber had finished the year with a strong membership and a stable financial base. The chamber currently has around 700 members from 420 companies and organizations.
“2010 was a good year for the ECCT and the chamber has prospered along with the Taiwan economy’s rebound after the global financial crisis,” the chamber said in the statement.
In October, the chamber in its annual position paper called for the government to take decisive action to improve the nation’s economic development and find a competitive position on the international stage.
At the time, the ECCT highlighted three main areas the government should look into: Bringing the nation’s legal system into line with international standards, bans on certain imports from China and signing Trade Enhancement Measures an agreement with the EU.
The ECCT is expected to send its annual Open Door Mission to Brussels later this month to discuss related trade issues with senior European Commission representatives, members of the European Parliament and Taiwan’s representative to the EU.
In related news, Mercedes-Benz Taiwan Ltd (台灣賓士) yesterday announced that Eberhard Kern would take over from Wolfram Geisler as the company’s new president and chief executive officer, after Geisler decided to retire from the post.
Kern, 47, has been working for the Daimler AG for 28 years. Prior to joining the Taiwan team, he was vice-president of Mercedes-Benz Russia SAO and helped boost the company’s sales in that country four times in five years.
Geisler, 62, had been with Mercedes-Benz Taiwan for seven years. During the first 11 months of the year, the company sold 8,036 cars, up more than 70 percent from a year earlier, beating Lexus and BMW as the leading luxury car brand in Taiwan, according to the company’s tallies.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
Taipei is today suspending its US$2.5 trillion stock market as Super Typhoon Krathon approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed-income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Yesterday, schools and offices were closed in several cities and counties in southern and eastern Taiwan, including in the key industrial port city of Kaohsiung. Taiwan, which started canceling flights, ship sailings and some train services earlier this week, has wind and rain advisories in place for much of the island. It regularly experiences typhoons, and in July shut offices and schools as
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
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