The government must be expeditious with its proposed second round of stimulus vouchers to boost domestic demand, Far Eastern Department Stores Ltd (遠東百貨) chairman Douglas Hsu (徐旭東) said yesterday.
“The government has to move fast to give the post-[COVID-19] pandemic economy a boost,” Hsu said at the company’s annual general meeting in Taipei. “As for the amount, while I am sure it has budget considerations, the more the better.”
The Triple Stimulus Vouchers program, launched in July last year, saw Taiwanese and even foreign permanent residents receive NT$3,000 of vouchers in return for putting in NT$1,000.
Photo: CNA
The program, which ended at the end of last year, garnered 99 percent participation, with NT$64.28 billion (US$2.29 billion) of vouchers redeemed by vendors, Ministry of Economic Affairs data showed.
Administration of the program, including printing and distribution, cost more than NT$2 billion, and a second round of at least the same size is being planned by the Executive Yuan, the ministry has said.
Vouchers are said to be more effective than cash handouts because they must be spent by an expiration date, giving the economy the maximum boost and preventing funds from going into savings.
National Central University professor Dachrahn Wu (吳大任) said that a second round of stimulus vouchers would be welcome and distribution should be timed to coincide with the end of the COVID-19 alert.
The government needs to do more this time, especially for small businesses, as many of them do not have cash on hand, Wu said, adding that the government should extend more loans to small businesses so they can survive until the restrictions end.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has approved a capital budget of US$31.28 billion for production expansion to meet long-term development needs during the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company’s board meeting yesterday approved the capital appropriation plan for purposes such as the installation of advanced technology capacity and fab construction, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. At an earnings conference last month, TSMC forecast that its capital expenditure for this year would be at the higher end of the US$52 billion to US$56 billion range it forecast in January in response to robust demand for 5G, AI and
RSS