ECONOMY
National net worth rises
Average net worth per household was NT$11.23 million (US$372,397) at the end of 2015, the highest in five years, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) reported yesterday. The figure represented an increase of NT$310,000 from 2014 and was mainly due to increases in property value and financial assets, the DGBAS said. In 2015, gross national wealth rose 4.99 percent annually to NT$244.11 trillion, with increases of NT$6.83 trillion in property values and NT$4.5 trillion in financial assets, the DGBAS said. Meanwhile, the average financial liability per household was NT$1.7 million, an increase of NT$20,000, or 1.32 percent, from the previous year, the DGBAS said.
UTILITIES
Water restrictions to ease
Phase one water rationing measures in areas supplied by the Shihmen Reservoir (石門水庫) are likely to be lifted at an emergency response meeting on nationwide water supply today after rainfall in the nation’s north, Minister of Economic Affairs Lee Chih-kung (李世光) said yesterday. With the Central Weather Bureau predicting more rain in the next few days, Lee said southern Taiwan might maintain phase one rationing instead of implementing stricter phase two rationing.
BANKING
Pre-tax earnings fall
Pre-tax earnings by domestic banks fell 10 percent annually to NT$79.29 billion in the first quarter due to lagging growth in lending, the Financial Supervisory Commission said yesterday. In particular, earnings by China-based branches in the period fell 34.4 percent to NT$770 million due to foreign-exchange losses, as well as increased allowances for doubtful accounts, the commission said. Non-performing loans among the nation’s 38 banks last month rose by NT$1 billion to NT$77.6 billion, translating to a non-performing loan ratio of 0.3 percent, up 0.01 percentage points from the previous month, it said. Total outstanding loans last month rose by NT$74.9 billion to NT$26.2 trillion, it said.
CHIPMAKERS
Faraday income increases
Faraday Technology Corp (智原), a fabless chip designing service and silicon patent provider, yesterday said net income last quarter increased sharply to NT$521 million, or NT$2.12 per share, from the previous quarter’s NT$31 million, or NT$0.12 per share, as the company booked a divestment gain of NT$575 million by selling its surveillance business to Novatek Microelectronics Corp (聯詠), the nation’s biggest supplier of driver ICs for LCD panels. In the first quarter, Faraday reported an operating loss of NT$16 million, compared with an operating profit of NT$14 million the prior quarter, while sales were down 6.4 percent to NT$1.43 billion and gross margin increased 1.1 percentage points to 45.3 percent.
ELECTRONICS
Parade reports income rise
Parade Technologies Ltd (譜瑞), a leading video display and interface IC supplier, on Wednesday reported net income increased 10.75 percent annually to US$11.95 million in the first quarter, with earnings per share of US$0.16. Gross margin was within the company’s guidance at 40 percent in the first quarter, the company said. Parade said sales for this quarter would likely reach between US$79 million and US$86 million, compared with the previous quarter’s US$75.64 million, with contributions from standard-plus timing controllers, high-speed interfaces and source ICs.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
ENERGY ISSUES: The TSIA urged the government to increase natural gas and helium reserves to reduce the impact of the Middle East war on semiconductor supply stability Chip testing and packaging service provider ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) yesterday said it planned to invest more than NT$100 billion (US$3.15 billion) in building a new advanced chip testing facility in Kaohsiung to keep up with customer demand driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. That would be included in the company’s capital expenditure budget next year, ASE said. There is also room to raise this year’s capital spending budget from a record-high US$7 billion estimated three months ago, it added. ASE would have six factories under construction this year, another record-breaking number, ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu
The EU and US are nearing an agreement to coordinate on producing and securing critical minerals, part of a push to break reliance on Chinese supplies. The potential deal would create incentives, such as minimum prices, that could advantage non-Chinese suppliers, according to a draft of an “action plan” seen by Bloomberg. The EU and US would also cooperate on standards, investments and joint projects, as well as coordinate on any supply disruptions by countries like China. The two sides are additionally seeking other “like-minded partners” to join a multicountry accord to help create these new critical mineral supply chains, which feed into
For weeks now, the global tech industry has been waiting for a major artificial intelligence (AI) launch from DeepSeek (深度求索), seen as a benchmark for China’s progress in the fast-moving field. More than a year has passed since the start-up put Chinese AI on the map in early last year with a low-cost chatbot that performed at a similar level to US rivals. However, despite reports and rumors about its imminent release, DeepSeek’s next-generation “V4” model is nowhere in sight. Speculation is also swirling over the geopolitical implications of which computer chips were chosen to train and power the new
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