The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday gave the green light to Good Way Technology Co’s (東碩資訊) application to invest up to NT$700 million (US$23.1 million) in Taiwan under a three-year program that provides incentives for overseas Taiwanese companies to invest back home.
Good Way, which specializes in docking stations and counts Intel Corp among its major clients, plans to set up a manufacturing facility in New Taipei City’s Sijhih District (汐止), the ministry said in a statement.
Good Way, which has a research and development facility in Taiwan and only one manufacturing plant — in Kunshan, China — decided to expand its operations in Taiwan to meet customers’ requests that it diversifies its production to lower risks amid trade tensions between the US and China, the ministry said.
The ministry also approved three other companies’ investment applications: mechanical parts maker Chenming Electronic Tech Corp (晟銘電子), golf club manufacturer Juming Co (鉅明) and storage furniture maker Huei Tyng Enterprise Co (輝庭企業).
Chenming Electronic, which specializes in server cloning, plans to set up a new automated plant in northern Taiwan to sharpen its competitive edge, the ministry said, without disclosing the planned investment amount.
Juming and Huei Tyng are to invest more than NT$800 million and NT$900 million respectively to expand their production capacities as more orders are transferred to Taiwan, the ministry said.
STATE UTILITIES
In other news, the ministry said Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) posted a pretax profit of NT$18 billion for last year after an injection of NT$32.7 billion from the government’s energy price stabilization fund.
Without allocation from the fund, Taipower posted pretax losses of NT$14.7 billion due to a combination of frozen electricity rates and mounting fuel costs, the ministry said.
Oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) posted a profit of NT$35.2 billion, as global crude oil prices rose last year.
However, the company is forecasting losses as international oil markets have slumped due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Taiwan Sugar Corp (台糖) and Taiwan Water Corp (台灣自來水) posted pretax profits of NT$3.28 billion and NT$191 million respectively for last year, the ministry said.
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
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