INVESTMENT
NDF reassures investors
The National Development Fund (NDF, 國發基金) on Saturday said that its interests in jeans manufacturer Roo Hsing Co (如興) would remain intact, despite the company’s plan to reduce its capitalization by 12.59 percent to offset accumulated losses. The fund, which last year purchased 80 million Roo Hsing shares, would hold 69.33 million shares if the capital reduction plan obtains a green light at an annual shareholders’ meeting on May 17. The fund said its shareholding in the firm would drop, but the capital reduction would reward it with higher net worth per share.
BANKING
Housing loans extend run
Housing loans extended by domestic banks last month grew for the 12th consecutive month to NT$6.68 trillion, up 0.06 percent from the previous month, central bank data showed on Friday last week. Compared with a year earlier, housing loans grew 4.66 percent, data showed. Overall, housing loans have increased 4 to 5 percent every month since last year, and with the aggregate loans in the first two months of the year grew 4.6 percent to NT$13.35 trillion, from NT$12.76 trillion a year earlier.
MANUFACTURING
Swancor Holding signs MOU
Resin manufacturer and wind farm developer Swancor Holding Co (上緯) on Thursday last week signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Yeong Guan Energy Technology Group Co (YGG, 永冠能源) and Atech Composites Co (先進複材) to develop a local supply chain for its Formosa III (海鼎風電) offshore wind farm. Swancor is partnering with Sydney-based Macquarie Capital Ltd and Germany-headquartered EnBW Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG to develop Formosa III, which is expected to begin operations in 2025.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
PARTNERSHIPS: TSMC said it has been working with multiple memorychip makers for more than two years to provide a full spectrum of solutions to address AI demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has been collaborating with multiple memorychip makers in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications for more than two years, refuting South Korean media report's about an unprecedented partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. As Samsung is competing with TSMC for a bigger foundry business, any cooperation between the two technology heavyweights would catch the eyes of investors and experts in the semiconductor industry. “We have been working with memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, on HBM solutions for more than two years, aiming to advance 3D integrated circuit
NATURAL PARTNERS: Taiwan and Japan have complementary dominant supply chain positions, are geographically and culturally close, and have similar work ethics Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and other related companies would add ￥11.2 trillion (US$78.31 billion) to Japan’s chipmaking hot spot Kumamoto Prefecture over the next decade, a local bank’s analysis said. Kyushu Financial Group, a lender based in Kumamoto’s capital, almost doubled its projection for the economic impact that the chip sector would bring to the region compared to its estimate a year earlier, a presentation on Thursday said. The bank said that 171 firms had made new investments since November 2021, up from 90 in an earlier analysis. TSMC’s Kumamoto location was once a sleepy farming area, but has undergone
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