STEELMAKERS
CSC profits plummet 23%
China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), the nation’s biggest steelmaker, yesterday said its pre-tax profits plunged 23 percent to NT$1.48 billion (US$47.59 million) last month, compared with NT$1.92 billion in February, mostly due to price declines. In the first three months of this year, pre-tax profit amounted to NT$6.04 billion. That represented an annual growth of 19 percent from NT$5.07 billion in the same period of last year, according to the company’s filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Steel prices fell 12.6 percent sequentially in the past quarter. Shipments of carbon steel surged about 25 percent sequentially to 811,767 tonnes last month from 644,118 tonnes a month ago. Last quarter, China Steel shipped a total of 2.38 million tonnes of carbon steel, up 4.15 percent from 2.28 million tonnes in the same period last year.
BANKING
CHB opens Fuzhou branch
State-run Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (CHB, 彰化銀行) yesterday opened a branch in the Chinese city of Fuzhou to take advantage of booming economic development in China’s coastal province of Fujian. It is the lender’s third branch in China, where higher interest rates are expected to boost profit margins, although the benefits have been tapering off in recent years due to increasing competition. CHB owns a branch in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, and Dongguan, Guangdong Province. CHB chairman Chang Ming-daw (張明道) hosted the ceremony in person.
CURRENCIES
TWD hits five-month high
The New Taiwan dollar rose to a five-month high on optimism the economy will benefit from an expansion of monetary stimulus in China, its largest export market. The People’s Bank of China on Sunday announced a 1 percentage point cut to lenders’ reserve requirement ratios, the most since the global financial crisis. The move is expected to unleash about 1.2 trillion yuan (US$193.5 billion), potentially boosting China’s stock market and aiding sentiment toward regional bourses. “Funds might invest in other Asian currencies before the yuan,” Taipei-based Uni-President Asset Management Corp (統一投信) fund manager Samson Tu (涂韶鈺) said. The NT dollar rose 0.2 percent to NT$31.102 against the greenback, Taipei Forex Inc prices showed. The currency climbed to NT$30.972 earlier, the strongest level since Nov. 28 last year. One-month non-deliverable forwards remained little changed at NT$30.983, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
AVIATION
V Air offers NT$666 tickets
V Air (威航), a low-cost subsidiary of Taiwan’s TransAsia Airways (復興航空), yesterday said that it plans to launch a promotional campaign today that is to offer 10,000 tickets for as low as NT$666. The cheapest tickets are to be for Taiwan-Macau flights, while tickets to the destinations of Bangkok and Chiang Mai in Thailand are to cost NT$999, the airline said. The campaign is to start at 9am today on the carrier’s Web site and run through 11:59pm on Thursday, it said, adding that all tickets would be for flights between May 1 and June 30. V Air, established in November 2013, launched its services on Dec. 17 last year with an inaugural flight to Bangkok. Flights to Chiang Mai and Macau were added to its network on Jan. 7 and April 11 respectively.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
Taiwan’s exports soared 56 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of US$64.05 billion last month, propelled by surging global demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and cloud service infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) called the figure an unexpected upside surprise, citing a wave of technology orders from overseas customers alongside the usual year-end shopping season for technology products. Growth is likely to remain strong this month, she said, projecting a 40 percent to 45 percent expansion on an annual basis. The outperformance could prompt the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
NATIONAL SECURITY: Intel’s testing of ACM tools despite US government control ‘highlights egregious gaps in US technology protection policies,’ a former official said Chipmaker Intel Corp has tested chipmaking tools this year from a toolmaker with deep roots in China and two overseas units that were targeted by US sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Intel, which fended off calls for its CEO’s resignation from US President Donald Trump in August over his alleged ties to China, got the tools from ACM Research Inc, a Fremont, California-based producer of chipmaking equipment. Two of ACM’s units, based in Shanghai and South Korea, were among a number of firms barred last year from receiving US technology over claims they have
BARRIERS: Gudeng’s chairman said it was unlikely that the US could replicate Taiwan’s science parks in Arizona, given its strict immigration policies and cultural differences Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登), which supplies wafer pods to the world’s major semiconductor firms, yesterday said it is in no rush to set up production in the US due to high costs. The company supplies its customers through a warehouse in Arizona jointly operated by TSS Holdings Ltd (德鑫控股), a joint holding of Gudeng and 17 Taiwanese firms in the semiconductor supply chain, including specialty plastic compounds producer Nytex Composites Co (耐特) and automated material handling system supplier Symtek Automation Asia Co (迅得). While the company has long been exploring the feasibility of setting up production in the US to address
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