Elastic textile industry leader E.C.I. Elastic Co (二億企業) and air-conditioning contract manufacturer New Widetech (威技電器) have pledged to invest more than NT$1 billion (US$34.52 million) as a part of the government’s Invest in Taiwan initiative, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
So far, 672 companies have been approved to participate in the initiative, with investments totaling NT$1.1 trillion and more than 93,000 job opportunities expected to be created, the ministry said.
Firms have to be “committed” to smart, high-value-added manufacturing to be part of the program, said Ho Kun-sung (何坤松), chief operating officer and spokesman for the ministry’s InvesTaiwan Service Center.
In return, they receive some assistance with bank loans and in other areas, such as looking for sites and talent, Ho said.
E.C.I. Elastic plans to invest NT$500 million to build a new plant in Changhua County’s Fusing Industrial Park (福興工業區).
“E.C.I Elastics is a key strategic partner in Taiwan’s apparel market,” the ministry said in a release.
E.C.I. Elastics counts Wacoal Holdings Corp, Adidas AG, Nike Inc, Puma SE and Reebok International Ltd among its clients.
The company also produced mask elastic and belts for isolation robes as a part of the government’s “national team” for COVID-19 prevention.
The investment would create 15 new jobs, the ministry said.
New Widetech has production sites in Tainan and Guandong, China. It has factory lines for the assembly of dehumidifiers and mobile air-conditioners, and has invested in various component factories so that it is 90 percent vertically integrated, the ministry said.
The company’s major clients include De’Longhi SpA, Honeywell International Inc, General Electric Co and Sharp Corp.
“The US-China trade dispute caused New Widetech to change its production strategy and move the production of the compressor, the heart of the air-conditioner, back to Taiwan,” the ministry said.
New Widetech plans to add a new smart production line for compressors and a plastic mold injection line to its Tainan production facilities, investing NT$500 million and creating 56 jobs, it said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained