Shining Group (鄉林集團) said it is looking to set up a second holiday resort in Taiwan, while it expects business to improve in China after the country relaxed COVID-19 curbs.
The Taichung-based conglomerate — whose business interests span property development and operating luxury hotels, including The Lalu (涵碧樓) in Nantou County and resorts of the same name in China — intends to set up a hotel in Yunlin County with the same business concept as the Nantou facility, Shining chairman Lai Cheng-i (賴正鎰) told a media briefing in Taipei on Wednesday.
The resort near Sun Moon Lake (日月潭) posted robust occupancy rates and kept its prices stable during the COVID-19 pandemic, profiting from health and wellness trends, he said.
Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times
Sales at its The Lalu hotels in China’s Qingdao and Nanjing recovered quickly after Beijing abandoned its “zero COVID-19” policy last month, Lai said, adding that the two facilities are fully booked over the Lunar New Year holiday.
Lai said the group’s hospitality revenue might this year return to the pre-pandemic levels.
Unique resort facilities in Taiwan have proved popular and profitable despite their less convenient locations, Shining manager Liu An-kang (劉安康) said, citing The Bal’s Villas (牛眠埔里) in Nantou County as an example.
The group has also tapped into the property management business by leasing unsold apartments in Taipei’s Shilin District (士林) to health and beauty service providers to generate rental income, Liu said.
Shining Building Business Co (鄉林建設), the group’s main arm, would continue to focus on urban renewal and joint development projects despite unfavorable laws that ban transfers of presale property and require legal entities to obtain permission before starting real-estate ventures, he said.
The legal revisions would scare away property investors and small developers, as home buyers would have to hold on to their properties for a long time to avoid punitive taxes, he added.
The ban on transfers of presale property could discourage urban renewal projects, as cash-stressed owners would not be allowed to find successors or partners after seeking in vain to integrate participants, Lai said.
It is time-consuming to bring all owners of land plots and old houses on board for urban renewal projects, he said, adding that initiators of such projects frequently bow out to cut losses.
The unfavorable legislation and economic uncertainty might cause presale property sales to shrink to NT$1.6 trillion (US$52.53 billion) this year, from NT$2 trillion last year, Lai said.
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) suffered its biggest stock decline in more than a month after the company unveiled new artificial intelligence (AI) chips, but did not provide hoped-for information on customers or financial performance. The stock slid 4 percent to US$164.18 on Thursday, the biggest single-day drop since Sept. 3. Shares of the company remain up 11 percent this year. AMD has emerged as the biggest contender to Nvidia Corp in the lucrative market of AI processors. The company’s latest chips would exceed some capabilities of its rival, AMD chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) said at an event hosted by
TECH JUGGERNAUT: TSMC shares have more than doubled since ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, as demand for cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips remains high Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday posted a better-than-expected 39 percent rise in quarterly revenue, assuaging concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending is beginning to taper off. The main chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported third-quarter sales of NT$759.69 billion (US$23.6 billion), compared with the average analyst projection of NT$748 billion. For last month alone, TSMC reported revenue jumped 39.6 percent year-on-year to NT$251.87 billion. Taiwan’s largest company is to disclose its full third-quarter earnings on Thursday next week and update its outlook. Hsinchu-based TSMC produces the cutting-edge chips needed to train AI. The company now makes more
NEXT GENERATION: The new 3-nanometer chip has 28 percent more transistors and offers up to 80 percent faster language model performance than its predecessor MediaTek Inc (聯發科) on Wednesday launched a new flagship smartphone chip, Dimensity 9400, made with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) enhanced 3-nanometer technology, aiming to bring more artificial intelligence (AI) applications to edge devices like phones. The Dimensity 9400 is the second smartphone chip using TSMC’s second-generation 3-nanometer technology, after Apple Inc’s A18 Pro chip for the new iPhone 16 series. The new mobile chip has 28 percent more transistors, offers up to 80 percent faster large language model performance and is up to 35 percent more power-efficient than its predecessor, Dimensity 9300, MediaTek said. Chinese smartphone makers Xiaomi Corp (小米),
RSS