Commercial property transactions last quarter more than doubled to NT$56.7 billion (US$1.78 billion) from three months earlier, driven by strong demand from local tech firms to expand their capacity, data released by property consultancy Savills Taiwan (第一太平戴維斯) on Tuesday showed.
Sales surged 176 percent from the same period last year.
Most of the commercial real-estate deals took place in southern Taiwan, with available properties becoming increasingly scarce in the north, Savills Taiwan said.
Photo courtesy of Sinyi Global Management Co
“Technology firms became the largest commercial property buyers by pouring NT$39.9 billion into existing factories, accounting for 70 percent of the deals during the July-to-September period,” Savills research manager Erin Ting (丁玟甄) said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), the world’s largest advanced chipmaker, bought an idle plant in Tainan from flat-panel display maker Innolux Corp (群創) for NT$17.14 billion, as it is increasing its advanced-chip packaging capacity, Ting said.
Micron Technology Taiwan Inc (台灣美光), the local subsidiary of a US producer of computer memory and computer data storage, acquired an industrial property in Tainan from flat-panel supplier AUO Corp (友達) for NT$7.4 billion, she said.
Chip tester and packager ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) bought two industrial complexes in Kaohsiung for NT$5.26 billion to meet expansion needs, she said.
All three firms have benefitted from business improvement linked to an artificial intelligence boom and intend to add capacity by acquiring existing factories, Ting said.
In the first three quarters of the year, commercial property transactions totaled NT$124.9 billion, rising 33 percent from a year earlier, Savills data showed.
Tech firms contributed NT$56.6 billion, or 47 percent, followed by developers and builders at NT$26.3 billion and investment institutions at NT$9.9 billion, it said.
Developers and builders have targeted old hotels, office buildings and factories in major urban areas since urban renewal projects and reconstruction of dilapidated buildings are not subject to the central bank’s loan restrictions, Savills Taiwan said.
By contrast, life insurance companies, traditionally the main players in the commercial property market, stayed low-key in the first nine months of this year.
Ting attributed it to the required minimum investment return of 2.97 percent for life insurers following waves of interest rate hikes.
Soaring property prices in recent years have added to their difficulty, especially in northern Taiwan and special municipalities, Ting said.
Instead, life insurers have sought to use their investment funds for public development projects, Savills Taiwan said.
Taiwan Life Insurance Co (台灣人壽) late last month won a contract to develop a 57,000 ping (188,430m2) plot of land in Taoyuan for NT$13.7 billion, aiming to build hotels, shopping spaces and a mixed-use stadium, it said.
Shiina Ito has had fewer Chinese customers at her Tokyo jewelry shop since Beijing issued a travel warning in the wake of a diplomatic spat, but she said she was not concerned. A souring of Tokyo-Beijing relations this month, following remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi about Taiwan, has fueled concerns about the impact on the ritzy boutiques, noodle joints and hotels where holidaymakers spend their cash. However, businesses in Tokyo largely shrugged off any anxiety. “Since there are fewer Chinese customers, it’s become a bit easier for Japanese shoppers to visit, so our sales haven’t really dropped,” Ito
The number of Taiwanese working in the US rose to a record high of 137,000 last year, driven largely by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) rapid overseas expansion, according to government data released yesterday. A total of 666,000 Taiwanese nationals were employed abroad last year, an increase of 45,000 from 2023 and the highest level since the COVID-19 pandemic, data from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) showed. Overseas employment had steadily increased between 2009 and 2019, peaking at 739,000, before plunging to 319,000 in 2021 amid US-China trade tensions, global supply chain shifts, reshoring by Taiwanese companies and
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) Chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) and the company’s former chairman, Mark Liu (劉德音), both received the Robert N. Noyce Award -- the semiconductor industry’s highest honor -- in San Jose, California, on Thursday (local time). Speaking at the award event, Liu, who retired last year, expressed gratitude to his wife, his dissertation advisor at the University of California, Berkeley, his supervisors at AT&T Bell Laboratories -- where he worked on optical fiber communication systems before joining TSMC, TSMC partners, and industry colleagues. Liu said that working alongside TSMC
TECHNOLOGY DAY: The Taiwanese firm is also setting up a joint venture with Alphabet Inc on robots and plans to establish a firm in Japan to produce Model A EVs Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday announced a collaboration with ChatGPT developer OpenAI to build next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and strengthen its local supply chain in the US to accelerate the deployment of advanced AI systems. Building such an infrastructure in the US is crucial for strengthening local supply chains and supporting the US in maintaining its leading position in the AI domain, Hon Hai said in a statement. Through the collaboration, OpenAI would share its insights into emerging hardware needs in the AI industry with Hon Hai to support the company’s design and development work, as well
RSS