SILICON WAFERS
GlobalWafers’ outlook rises
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday reported revenue of NT$5.41 billion (US$193.3 million) for last month, up 12.52 percent month-on-month and 6.81 percent year-on-year. As a result, the company’s second-quarter revenue increased 2.7 percent quarter-on-quarter and 11 percent year-on-year to NT$15.21 billion. In the first half of the year, revenue totaled NT$30.01 billion, up 10.28 percent from a year earlier, a company regulatory filing showed. GlobalWafers said that it has a positive outlook for the second half of the year thanks to a gradual recovery of the global economy and strong demand for semiconductors.
DISPLAYS
HannStar to add capacity
Handset display manufacturer HannStar Display Corp (瀚宇彩晶) yesterday said that its board of directors approved to spend NT$17 billion to install equipment for manufacturing thin-film-?transistor liquid crystal display panels to increase the company’s capacity at its 5.3-generation plant in Tainan. The company said that it would use its own capital to fund the expansion and expects the new lines to begin mass production in 2023. While the company reported earnings per share of NT$1.25 for last year — the highest in four years — company data showed that in the first four months of this year, its earnings per share of NT$1.32 had already exceeded the figure for the whole of last year.
GLOBAL TRADE
Taiwan, Australia talk trade
Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) on Thursday last week videoconferenced with Australian Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Dan Tehan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a news release on Tuesday. The ministers talked about “international trade issues,” and Tehan invited Wang to a hydrogen conference to be held at the Australian Office in Taipei on July 29, the ministry said. “The conference will foster collaboration between the two sides on new technological developments in renewable energy and will have a positive effect on Taiwan’s energy transition,” Wang said in the release.
ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Foxtron, San-Ti ink MOU
Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進科技), a subsidiary of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the San-Ti Group (三地集團) to integrate Hon Hai’s electric buses into San-Ti’s passenger bus fleet next year. The electric buses would be the first commercial vehicles designed using Hon Hai’s MIH Open Platform. The MOU says that the electric buses would be introduced into the fleet “phase by phase,” starting with a trial at San-Ti’s subsidiary, the Kaohsiung Bus Co (高雄客運). San-Ti operates 600 buses in Taiwan.
INVESTMENT
Fubon, Jih Sun unions talk
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控), which gained a 53.84 percent stake in Jih Sun Financial Holding Co (日盛金控) in March, last week began to negotiate with Jih Sun’s two labor unions in a bid to hammer out a new collective bargaining agreement. “We negotiated the labor rights issues via videoconference. It was a good beginning,” Fubon said in a statement on Sunday. The unions represent Jih Sun Financial and Jih Sun International Bank (日盛銀行), Fubon Financial said, adding that the next talks are to take place in three weeks. Fubon Financial said that it has 11 candidates to stand in the Jih Sun board election on Aug. 31, as it seeks to gain a majority on the board.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
UNCERTAINTIES: Exports surged 34.1% and private investment grew 7.03% to outpace expectations in the first half, although US tariffs could stall momentum The Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast to 3.05 percent this year on a robust first-half performance, but warned that US tariff threats and external uncertainty could stall momentum in the second half of the year. “The first half proved exceptionally strong, allowing room for optimism,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “But the growth momentum may slow moving forward due to US tariffs.” The tariff threat poses definite downside risks, although the scale of the impact remains unclear given the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s policies, Lien said. Despite the headwinds, Taiwan is likely
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
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