The government’s “Invest in Taiwan” initiative might this year see NT$627.1 billion (US$21.7 billion) of investment pledges realized, with several firms raising stakes and two dropouts due to customer losses, Minister of Economic Affairs (MOEA) Wang Mei-hua (王美花) said yesterday.
Wang made the statement at the monthly meeting of the Third Wednesday Club, a local trade group featuring the top 100 firms of each business sector.
Since early last year, the government has launched three programs intended to help local companies grapple with US-China trade rows and the COVID-19 pandemic, mainly through moving production lines back to Taiwan.
Photo: CNA
Thus far, the ministry has received NT$1.13 trillion of investment pledges, with NT$251.3 billion invested last year and NT$375.8 million to be fulfilled by the end of this year, Wang said, adding that investments have for example been made by motherboard maker Gigabyte Technology Co (技嘉), cloud computing equipment supplier Wiwynn Corp (緯穎科技), communications solutions provider Accton Technology Corp (智邦科技) and networking equipment supplier Wistron NeWeb Corp (啟碁科技), among others.
Local firms have been moving high-end manufacturing facilities home to diversify investment risks as the US and China decouple trade ties. The restructuring allowed local firms to benefit from order transfers when China and ASEAN member countries came under lockdown earlier this year to fight the COVID-19 outbreak.
Packaging specialist Taiwan Lamination Industries Inc (台灣積層工業), Highlight Tech Corp (日揚科技) and Wistron NeWeb have increased investments to meet growing demand for their products, Wang said.
Two companies have called off investment plans after their top customer, China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為), canceled orders, she said.
As of Friday last week, the government had this year given its approval to 389 companies that pledged to invest NT$284.9 billion and created 24,821 jobs in Taiwan, Wang said.
Taichung emerges as the biggest investment destination, while Taoyuan enjoys the most new jobs, she said.
Wang said that local companies should tap business opportunities in the green energy sector, following the global trend.
In Taiwan, companies that consume the most electricity would be required to purchase equitable amounts of green energy, she said.
Contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) announced that it would sign a 20-year contract with Orsted Taiwan Ltd (沃旭能源) to purchase all the electricity generated by its offshore wind farms after commercial operations start in 2025 or 2026.
Wang said that an uptick in COVID-19 infections worldwide dims the chance for Taiwan to ease travel restrictions anytime soon.
“I know border controls and mandatory quarantine create great inconvenience for businesses, but the spikes in virus infections worldwide require caution,” Wang said.
TECH TITAN: Pandemic-era demand for semiconductors turbocharged the nation’s GDP per capita to surpass South Korea’s, but it still remains half that of Singapore Taiwan is set to surpass South Korea this year in terms of wealth for the first time in more than two decades, marking a shift in Asia’s economic ranks made possible by the ascent of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電). According to the latest forecasts released on Thursday by the central bank, Taiwan’s GDP is expected to expand 4.55 percent this year, a further upward revision from the 4.45 percent estimate made by the statistics bureau last month. The growth trajectory puts Taiwan on track to exceed South Korea’s GDP per capita — a key measure of living standards — a
Samsung Electronics Co shares jumped 4.47 percent yesterday after reports it has won approval from Nvidia Corp for the use of advanced high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, which marks a breakthrough for the South Korean technology leader. The stock closed at 83,500 won in Seoul, the highest since July 31 last year. Yesterday’s gain comes after local media, including the Korea Economic Daily, reported that Samsung’s 12-layer HBM3E product recently passed Nvidia’s qualification tests. That clears the components for use in the artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators essential to the training of AI models from ChatGPT to DeepSeek (深度求索), and finally allows Samsung
READY TO HELP: Should TSMC require assistance, the government would fully cooperate in helping to speed up the establishment of the Chiayi plant, an official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said its investment plans in Taiwan are “unchanged” amid speculation that the chipmaker might have suspended construction work on its second chip packaging plant in Chiayi County and plans to move equipment arranged for the plant to the US. The Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported earlier yesterday that TSMC had halted the construction of the chip packaging plant, which was scheduled to be completed next year and begin mass production in 2028. TSMC did not directly address whether construction of the plant had halted, but said its investment plans in Taiwan remain “unchanged.” The chipmaker started
MORTGAGE WORRIES: About 34% of respondents to a survey said they would approach multiple lenders to pay for a home, while 29.2% said they would ask family for help New housing projects in Taiwan’s six special municipalities, as well as Hsinchu city and county, are projected to total NT$710.65 billion (US$23.61 billion) in the upcoming fall sales season, a record 30 percent decrease from a year earlier, as tighter mortgage rules prompt developers to pull back, property listing platform 591.com (591新建案) said yesterday. The number of projects has also fallen to 312, a more than 20 percent decrease year-on-year, underscoring weakening sentiment and momentum amid lingering policy and financing headwinds. New Taipei City and Taoyuan bucked the downturn in project value, while Taipei, Hsinchu city and county, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung
RSS