Taiwanese electronics companies should benefit from a weaker yen, as many of them import key components from Japan, an executive from the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Taipei said yesterday.
The Japanese currency dropped near a seven-year low of ￥114.5 per US dollar yesterday after the Bank of Japan unexpectedly said on Friday last week that it was expanding its monetary easing policy to combat deflation.
“The yen may pull back a bit after the dramatic depreciation, but I believe the currency will remain weak in the long term,” Isao Takeuchi, a senior director of the business association, told a media briefing.
Photo: CNA
Takeuchi is also the general manager of Mizuho Bank Ltd’s Taipei branch.
Japanese manufacturers with operations in Taiwan might not benefit much because they have diverse production bases at home and abroad, Takeuchi said.
However, for Taiwan, it will be a different story, he said.
“As most Taiwanese electronics companies, especially those in the information technology industry, purchase key components from Japan, the yen’s significant decline will help them reduce component sourcing costs,” Takeuchi said.
Taiwan’s LCD and semiconductor industries are two of the biggest importers of chemical materials and equipment from Japan, data from the Industrial Development Bureau show.
In addition, Taiwanese foundry and DRAM firms, as well as suppliers of components used in machine tools and bicycles, might indirectly get a boost in orders from their Japanese clients as the weaker yen makes Japanese brands more price competitive, the bureau said.
However, the yen’s depreciation might negatively impact certain Taiwanese firms, the bureau said.
Bicycle and machinery tool manufacturers could bear the brunt of stronger pricing competition from their Japanese counterparts, it said.
The Japanese business association, which represents 450 Japanese firms in Taiwan, also delivered an annual white paper to the National Development Council.
The government should accelerate negotiations with Japan to ink an economic partnership agreement — which is similar to a free-trade pact — to deepen trade ties between the countries, the white paper said.
It also urged Taiwan to reduce its economic reliance on China and to explore new business opportunities outside the world’s No. 2 economy, such as emerging countries in Southeast Asia, chamber chairman Hiroshi Ishizuka said.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
RSS