Terry Gou (
Gou, 54, was ranked 176th richest on the Forbes list for last year, with assets of US$2.8 billion, while Lin Yuan Group founder Tsai, who died in September of respiratory failure at the age of 79, was ranked No. 94 last year with assets of US$4.6 billion.
Gou built his fortune after starting the company in 1974 with an investment of NT$300,000 to make plastic knobs for television sets. Now Hon Hai Precision mainly produces electrical connectors and assembles personal computers for Dell and Hewlett-Packard, and is tapping into mobile phone and flat-screen liquid-crystal-display manufacturing.
Several Taiwanese billionaires are on this year's list. They are: Formosa Group chairman Wang Yung-ching (
Evergreen Group founder Chang Yung-fa (
Asia-wide, Lakshmi Mittal, chief executive of Mittal Steel Co, overtook Li Ka-shing (
Mittal, 54, had the biggest increase in personal wealth in the annual survey by Forbes, jumping to the No. 3 spot behind Microsoft Corp Chairman Bill Gates and Berkshire Hathaway Inc Chairman Warren Buffett as his fortune increased by US$18.8 billion to US$25 billion. Hong Kong's Li, 76, was 22nd with US$13 billion.
Indian-born Mittal has bought steel mills from Poland to South Africa since 2003, benefiting from soaring demand from shipyards and building sites in China. Li, chairman of Hutchison Whampoa Ltd, has concentrated on expanding his mobile-phone businesses.
"It shows the rise of commodities and the fall of tech," said Manu Bhaskaran, head of economic research at Centennial Group.
Taiwan’s Lee Chia-hao (李佳豪) on Sunday won a silver medal at the All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, England, a career best. Lee, 25, took silver in the final of the men’s singles against world No. 1 Shi Yuqi (石宇奇) of China, who won 21-17, 21-19 in a tough match that lasted 51 minutes. After the match, the Taiwanese player, who ranks No. 22 in the world, said it felt unreal to be challenging an opponent of Shi’s caliber. “I had to be in peak form, and constantly switch my rhythm and tactics in order to score points effectively,” he said. Lee got
EMBRACING TAIWAN: US lawmakers have introduced an act aiming to replace the use of ‘Chinese Taipei’ with ‘Taiwan’ across all Washington’s federal agencies A group of US House of Representatives lawmakers has introduced legislation to replace the term “Chinese Taipei” with “Taiwan” across all federal agencies. US Representative Byron Donalds announced the introduction of the “America supports Taiwan act,” which would mandate federal agencies adopt “Taiwan” in place of “Chinese Taipei,” a news release on his page on the US House of Representatives’ Web site said. US representatives Mike Collins, Barry Moore and Tom Tiffany are cosponsors of the legislation, US political newspaper The Hill reported yesterday. “The legislation is a push to normalize the position of Taiwan as an autonomous country, although the official US
CHANGE OF TONE: G7 foreign ministers dropped past reassurances that there is no change in the position of the G7 members on Taiwan, including ‘one China’ policies G7 foreign ministers on Friday took a tough stance on China, stepping up their language on Taiwan and omitting some conciliatory references from past statements, including to “one China” policies. A statement by ministers meeting in Canada mirrored last month’s Japan-US statement in condemning “coercion” toward Taiwan. Compared with a G7 foreign ministers’ statement in November last year, the statement added members’ concerns over China’s nuclear buildup, although it omitted references to their concerns about Beijing’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. Also missing were references stressing the desire for “constructive and stable relations with China” and
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said it has lodged a protest with Pretoria after the name of the Taipei Liaison Office in South Africa was changed to the “Taipei Commercial Office” on the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation’s (DIRCO) Web site. In October last year, the South African government asked Taiwan to relocate the Taipei Liaison Office, the nation’s de facto embassy, out of Pretoria. It later agreed to continue negotiating through official channels, but in January asked that the office be relocated by the end of this month. As of the middle of last month, DIRCO’s Web
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