Layoffs will occur at Southern Taiwan Science Park

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/09/28
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Solar power leader Green Energy Technology (綠能科技) announced Friday it was planning to lay off 203 employees, or about 20 percent of its global workforce.

The Taiwanese company is ranked No.3 in the world and the largest in the country for the production of solar cell technology, but has been losing money since 2011, the Apple Daily reported.

All job losses would occur at Green Energy’s plant inside the Southern Taiwan Science Park, while the company would concentrate production at its Taoyuan City factory, reports said.

In its statement, Green Energy said it needed to rearrange its organization and staff requirements in order to meet its “customers’ strategic planning.” A response to the “violent ups and downs” of the market necessitated a reorganization to raise competitiveness and business performance, the company news release said.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/09/29
By: Ozzy Yin and Frances Huang

New York, Sept. 28 (CNA) Taiwan has agreed to buy up to US$1.56 billion-worth of

soybeans from the United States in 2018-2019, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Chicago said Friday.

A Taiwanese agricultural trade delegation signed a letter of intent on soybean purchases Thursday with the Minnesota Soybean Research and Promotion Council, the Taiwanese representative office in Chicago said in a statement.

The Taiwanese delegation was led by Taiwan Vegetable Oil Manufacturers Association Chairman Hung Yau-kuen (洪堯昆). Hung said the purchase of soybeans showed Taiwan’s support for American farmers at a time of rising trade friction between the United States and China.

So far this year, Washington has imposed tariffs on US$250 billion- worth of Chinese goods, while China has retaliated by targeting U.S. merchandise including agricultural products such as soybeans and corn.   [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News  
Date: 2018/09/25
By:  Central News Agency

Solar cell maker Motech Industries Inc. will further scale down its workforce by about 2 percent as it copes with challenges facing the solar industry after announcing last week it would terminate the employment contracts of 300 migrant workers.

In a statement Tuesday, Motech said it is facing severe challenges and difficulties in the solar industry and is dealing with them by taking initiatives to streamline its organization and adjust its corporate strategy.

It said that in view of current operating conditions, it would downsize its support staff to lower costs and improve its overall competitiveness, the statement said.

Estimating that the plan would affect about 2 percent of its workforce, or about 60 employees, Motech called it a “painful decision” but stressed it had to move forward with the adjustment because of the rapidly changing and uncertain market.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/09/25
By: Tien Yu-pin, Lu Hsin-hui and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, Sept. 25 (CNA) Taiwan and the United Kingdom signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) Tuesday on cooperation in the development of financial technology and innovation.

The agreement was signed by Taiwan Financial Services Roundtable Chairman Hsu Jan-yau (許璋瑤) and Catherine Nettleton, the representative of the British Office Taipei, witnessed by George Hollingbery, the U.K. minister for trade policy at the Department for International Trade, who is visiting Taiwan.

Hollingbery said that while trying to boost trade and investment between the U.K. and Taiwan, his government sees the financial service sector as a promising area.

Under the terms of the MOU, the two sides agree to strengthen the provision of necessary information and assistance to financial technology (FinTech) companies from the two countries that plan to enter the market on the other side, and to promote links and cooperation in the FinTech area.    [FULL  STORY]

DECADE OF DEMAND: The fab would be the first in the world to commercially use FOPLP technology, which integrates different ICs more efficiently and economically

Taipei Times
Date: Sep 26, 2018
By: Lisa Wang  /  Staff reporter, in Hsinchu

Memorychip tester and packager Powertech Technology Inc (力成科技)

yesterday said it plans to invest NT$50 billion (US$1.63 billion) in the next five years to build an advanced fab for next-generation packaging technology, catering to growing demand for smaller and energy-saving chips for artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and autonomous vehicle applications.

Fab 3 in Hsinchu Science Park is to be the world’s first fab that commercially uses fan-out panel-level packaging (FOPLP) technology when it starts operations in the second half of 2020, Powertech said.

The announcement comes after Powertech’s major breakthroughs in commercializing the technology since it began secretly investing in it two years ago.

“It is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to shrink transistor [geometry] even smaller … to keep Moore’s law going,” Powertech chairman D.K. Tsai (蔡篤恭) told a media briefing, referring to an observation that processing power doubles every two years, while costs reduce by half.    [FULL  STORY]

Sales were driven by the launch of Samsung’s latest flagship smartphone the Galaxy Note 9

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/09/24
By:  Central News Agency

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea had the highest sales volume among other suppliers in Taiwan in August, driven by the launch of its latest flagship smartphone the Galaxy Note 9, according to industry sources.

With a 19.6 percent share of sales in Taiwan, Samsung edged up one notch to the top ranking from a month earlier, the sources said over the weekend.

The Galaxy Note 9 was released in Taiwan on Aug. 24 but the 512G model was sold out on the first day of pre-order sales, which started Aug. 15, according to the sources.

Smartphone sales in Taiwan totaled 540,000 units in August, with Samsung accounting for 19.6 percent, Apple Inc. of the U.S. 18.8 percent, Asustek Computer Inc. of Taiwan 15.5 percent, Chinese vendor OPPO 11.5 percent, and Taiwan-based brand HTC Corp. 6.2 percent, the sources said.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/09/24
By: Chu Che-wei and Ko Lin

Taipei, Sept. 24 (CNA) Taiwanese businesses operating in China will be

badly hurt by the trade skirmish between the United States and China next year when their orders are likely to gradually shift to other countries, experts said Monday.

The U.S. government recently imposed a new 10 percent tariff on US$200 billion worth of Chinese imports, spanning thousands of products that include food seasonings, baseball gloves, network routers and industrial machinery parts.

The 10 percent tariff on those goods will be increased to 25 percent effective Jan. 1, 2019.

Chen Tain-jy (陳添枝), an economics professor at National Taiwan University, said the decision for a two-phase increase was made to reduce the toll of higher tariffs on holiday shoppers buying Chinese imports in the coming months.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/09/21
By: Han Ting-ting and Frances Huang 

Taipei, Sept. 21 (CNA) Shares of Largan Precision Co., a Taiwanese supplier of smartphone camera lenses to Apple Inc., encountered heavy selling Friday after the company gave a cautious outlook for its September sales, dealers said.

The selling also reflected worry that Apple will not use triple camera lenses in its next generation iPhones in 2019, which would affect Largan’s shipments, they said.

As of 11:24 a.m. Friday, shares of Largan had fallen 4.21 percent to NT$3,640.00 (US$118), off an early low of NT$3,425.00, with 1.72 million shares changing hands on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.

On the broader market, the weighted index was up 0.88 percent at 10.926.89 points.
[FULL  STORY]