Taiwan News
Date: 2018/12/17
By:  Central News Agency

Vietnamese low-cost carrier VietJet Air held a recruitment event in Taiwan Sunday, attracting more than 100 applicants.

The company was looking for flight attendants with at least a high school diploma, a score of over 400 on the Test of English for International Communication examination, and a height of 170-185 centimeters for men and 160-175 cm for women, VietJet Air said.

The over 100 applicants included South Koreans and Macau residents.

VietJet Air, which employs over 1,000 flight attendants from Vietnam, China, Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea, the Philippines, Malaysia and Myanmar, currently has a fleet of 60 Airbus A320 and Airbus A321 planes.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/12/17
By: Jeffrey Wu and Frances Huang

Taipei, Dec. 17 (CNA) Foreign brokerages were mixed on the prospects for the stock of Taiwan-based PC brand Asustek Computer Inc. after the company said last week it could incur losses in the fourth quarter because of steep one-time costs.

In a research note, a European brokerage said it would take a wait-and-see attitude because Asustek’s new management announced on Dec. 13 still needs time to gain familiarity with the business before improve its operations.

In the management reshuffle announced Thursday, S.Y. Hsu (許先越) and Samson Hu (胡書賓) will become Austek’s co-CEOs beginning Jan. 1, 2019, and replace Jerry Shen (沈振來). They are expected to help the company venture into the AIoT (AI + IoT) business.

The brokerage praised Asustek’s decision to shift the client focus of its smartphone division from the general public to the niche market to appeal to gaming fans.
[FULL  STORY]

Former DPP secretary-general Wu Nai-jen announced that his family will relinquish their positions in Taiwan Styrene Monomer Corp, following criticism that the company has become Wu’s ‘family business’

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/12/16
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) secretary-general Wu Nai-jen ( 吳乃仁) announced on Sunday that his family will totally relinquish their positions in Taiwan Styrene Monomer Corp (TSM), where two groups are fighting to control the company, following criticism that the company has become Wu’s “family business.”

Wu made the statement following an earlier announcement on Dec. 14 that he would quit the DPP.

Apple Daily reported that two groups, led respectively by Sun Tieh-han (孫鐵漢) and former company chairman Lin Wen-yuan (林文淵), have been fighting for control of TSM for the past three years.

Wu reportedly mediated between the two groups and brought the boardroom battle to an end. Sun’s group finally obtained twice as many seats on the board of directors as Lin’s group did. With the support of Sun and Lin, Wu’s daughter, Wu Yi-qing (吳怡青), was elected as chairperson of the board, to last until April 2019. His son, Wu Yi-han(吳怡翰), also serves as a director of the board.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/12/16
By: Shih Hsiu-chuan and Tien Yu-bin

Taipei, Dec. 16 (CNA) Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) Ltd., an LCD panel maker, abruptly

declared a suspension of operations at its factories in Longtan and Yangmei districts in Taoyuan Saturday, according to media reports..

Lin Sheng-chang (林盛昌), president of the listed company, confirmed with the Chinese-language Apply Daily that the production lines had been halted.
[FULL  STORY]

While most countries only have three meals a day, Taiwan worships food so much that there’s a fourth and final meal: the midnight snack, or ‘xiaoye’ in Chinese.

BBC News
Date: 13 December 2018
By: Leslie Nguyen-Okwu
It was dark and sopping wet at the Ningxia Night Market in Taipei, Taiwan. Yet even as the rain continued to seep into my socks, the narrow alleys were still jam-packed with people, elbow to elbow.

All we do is eat
They were jostling to place their order at Li Zhang Bo, a small stinky tofu stall run by Yiwen Wang and Qirong Li, Taiwan’s self-described queen and king of stink. Their signature dish – deep-fried fermented tofu on a bed of pickled vegetables – would make even the most pungent locker room smell like roses. But still, the line of loyal customers threaded around the block, stretching as far as the nose-wrinkling odour wafted into the world beyond. The secret to their success? Here, in Taiwan, it is “socially acceptable” to go hunting for stinky tofu in the middle of the night, said Wang.

Welcome to a foodie’s final resting place.    [FULL  STORY]

The decision to base its North Asia Industrial IoT Hub in Taiwan is a welcome fillip for the island’s economy.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/12/15
By: David Green

McKinsey & Co. on Friday officially unveiled a program to put Taiwan at the center of its efforts to help the region transition to a new model of digital business.

Speaking at the launch of the McKinsey North Asia Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) Hub in Taipei, McKinsey Taiwan Managing Partner and American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei Chairman Albert Chang (章錦華) said multinational companies are facing a “make or break moment” in the race to embrace digital.

“We believe companies can attain a 30 percent productivity advantage by undertaking a digital transformation,” Chang said, adding that only a third of companies will successfully achieve the shift.

Chang reiterated a warning McKinsey sounded to Taiwanese executives last year that they must “digitize or die,” stressing that companies that fail to implement digital capabilities across their entire operations will soon find themselves struggling to survive. “If you are not first, you cannot compete,” he said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/12/15
By: Liao Yu-yang and Frances Huang 

Taipei, Dec. 15 (CNA) With the ongoing trade dispute between the United States and China still underway, export orders received by Taiwanese firms are expected to continue weakening into the first quarter of next year, an economist said Saturday.

In addition, a fall in raw material prices and lower-than-expected global demand for tech devices mean that Taiwan, an export-oriented economy, is expected to feel the pinch and report disappointing export orders, said Gordon Sun (孫明德), director of the Economic Forecasting Center under the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER).

The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) is scheduled to report the country’s export orders for November on Dec. 20 after a monthly record high of US$48.99 billion reported for October, up 5.1 percent from a year earlier, the fourth straight month of increase.

The MOEA said the global business sector has become more cautious, prompting many foreign buyers to put their purchases on hold, so it has forecast that Taiwan’s export orders for November will range between US$48 billion and US$49 billion, representing a range of between a 0.6 percent year-on-year increase to a fall of 1.4 percent.
[FULL  STORY]