LOW VISIBILITY: Chief executive officer Adam Lin said that semiconductor scarcity remains severe and the company does not have a clear picture for March’s revenue

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 08, 2021
By: Lisa Wang / Staff reporter

Largan Precision Co (大立光), a major camera lens supplier to Apple Inc’s iPhones, yesterday said that it expects revenue to dip further next month, dampened by semiconductor supply constraints and fewer working days due to the Lunar New Year holiday.

As order visibility remains low, Largan cannot provide a clear business outlook for March and this quarter, Largan chief executive Adam Lin (林恩平) told an investors’ teleconference.

“It appears that January [revenue] will be weaker than December. February will be even lower due to the Lunar New Year holiday,” Lin said.

It is still premature to predict when revenue would return to monthly growth, he said.    [FULL  STORY]

Requested rule changes would allow imports of pork containing ractopamine and beef from calves over 30 months of age.

Farm Progress
Date: Jan 04, 2021
By: Jacqui Fatka 

In August, Taiwan said it would lift restrictions on U.S. pork and beef imports, and in a New Year’s Address on Jan. 1, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-Wen again called for support for the action in order to improve U.S. trade relations.

Tsai previously instructed the relevant ministries to set permissible ractopamine residue levels for imported pork and ease restrictions on the import of beef from U.S. cattle aged 30 months or older in accordance with scientific evidence and international standards.

“From the recent discussions and disputes surrounding the decision to further open the domestic market to beef and pork importation that meets international standards, I fully understand why previous administrations could not follow through with their promises to do that,” Tsai says. “Taiwan depends on trade to survive. This issue was left pending by three successive administrations, so there was no way to avoid it.”

She adds, “With utmost humility, I ask my fellow citizens for your understanding, and hope everyone knows that we thought long and hard before making this decision.”
[FULL  STORY]

Foxconn endeavoring to recast itself as next-generation manufacturer

Taiwan News
Date6: 2021/01/04
By:Huang Tzu-ti, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Foxconn must aspire to become as much of a driving force of the Taiwanese economy as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), said Foxconn founder Terry Gou (郭台銘).

Foxconn should strive to catch up to TSMC, which is “a pillar of Taiwan’s economy,” said Gou, referring to the epithet earned by the world’s largest semiconductor foundry. He made the remark in an address on Monday (Jan. 4) at the inauguration ceremony for Hon Hai Research Institute (鴻海研究院).

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. trades as Foxconn Technology Group, or Foxconn.

According to Gou, Foxconn is reinventing itself as a next-generation manufacturer that will see its assembly lines expand to cover products used in autonomous driving and cloud computing industries, wrote Anue. He exhorted the company’s employees to look to TSMC as Foxconn transforms under the leadership of Chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉), who took the reins in July 2019.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date:01/04/2021
By: Han Ting-ting and Frances Huang

Taipei, Jan. 4 (CNA) Car sales in Taiwan were the highest in 15 years in 2020, which vendors attributed to travel restrictions amid COVID-19 that led consumers to take trips at home and increased demand for vehicles.

Government subsidies to encourage replacements of old cars and motorcycles to promote cleaner air were set to end on Jan. 7, leading consumers to take advantage of them before they expired, according to the vendors.

Among the consumer segments boosting demand were Taiwanese businesspeople and Taiwanese students living overseas who returned home to avoid COVID-19 infections and bought a car to get around, the vendors said.

Car sales in Taiwan rose 4 percent from a year earlier to 457,435 units in 2020, the second highest total in history behind only the 514,626 units sold in 2005, according to government figures released Monday.    [FULL  STORY]

‘SILICON SHIELD’: Although TSMC is indispensable to Western nations, more high-end companies need to join its ranks to boost research and development, Gou said

Taipei Times
Date: Jan 05, 2021
By: Staff writer, with CNA and Bloomberg

Taiwan needs more high-end companies than just Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to remain competitive, but it must also tackle its low birthrate, Terry Gou (郭台銘), founder of Apple Inc supplier Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), said yesterday.

Speaking at a ceremony to mark the founding of the Hon Hai Research Institute, Gou said he hoped that his company, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), would one day be on par with the TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker.

As a critical link in the global semiconductor supply chain and a major supplier for US tech companies, TSMC has been dubbed by foreign experts as Taiwan’s “silicon shield” and one of the reasons why the West needs to help defend the country in the event of a conflict with China.

However, Gou said that a “silicon shield” is not enough and he expressed concern over Taiwan’s shrinking birthrate.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 01/03/2021
By: Pan Tzu-yu and Chiang Yi-ching

Taipei, Jan. 3 (CNA) The slow growth of Taiwan's workforce in 2020 can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and the country's low fertility rate, according to an official from the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS).

Data released by the DGBAS in late December shows that the number of people in Taiwan's workforce, which is defined as individuals over the age of 15 who are employed or searching for work, averaged 11.964 million from January to November 2020.

This represented growth of 0.16 percent from the same period in 2019 and is the lowest growth level ever recorded for that time frame, Chen Hui-hsin (陳惠欣), deputy director of the DGBAS' Department of Census, told CNA.

The growth in Taiwan's workforce has slowed over the past few years due to the country's low fertility rate and the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the problem further last year, Chen said.    [FULL  STORY]

Pandemic, US-China trade war, exchange rates could still disrupt optimism: NDC

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/12/29
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The economy could grow in 2021 by up to 4.2 percent, a nine-year, high despite the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Cabinet-level National Development Council (NDC) predicted Monday (Dec. 28).

A combination of a global post-pandemic recovery, surging domestic demand, and the continuation of national investment programs would likely help Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to grow by a range from 3.8 percent to 4.2 percent, the NDC said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 12/29/2020
By: Wu Chia-jung and Joseph Yeh

Taipei, Dec. 29 (CNA) Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) on Tuesday fined Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) NT$12 million (US$422,982) after one of its financial advisors was found to have misappropriated NT$17.32 million from clients' accounts.

FSC Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Lin Chih-chi (林志吉) said the FSC handed out the fine following an investigation lasting several months after first receiving reports from Cathay United Bank in May about the alleged irregularity.

According to Lin, the bank found that an employee surnamed Hung (洪) at its Banqiao branch had misappropriated a large sum of money from four clients over a period of four-years-and-one-month; from March 2016 to March 2020.

In addition to imposing the fine for lapses in the bank's internal control system, the FSC also suspended the bank's Banqiao branch from operating insurance agent business for new clients and financial trust business for a period of one month.    [FULL  STORY]

PANDEMIC BOOST: The Hsinchu-based company expects strong demand to bring its annual revenue next year close to 2018’s record high of NT$59.06 billion

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 30, 2020
By: Lisa Wang / Staff reporter

GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, on Monday said that it is to raise its prices next year as 5G-related applications and the stay-at-home economy have boosted semiconductor demand during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to supply constraints.

With limited new supply worldwide, demand is expected to rise to the peak hit in 2018, the Hsinchu-based company said.

GlobalWafers expects to produce an additional 170,000 wafers a month next year as its new 12-inch fab in South Korea is increasing production.

“We expect the new South Korea fab to reach full capacity next year. We fear we will not be able to supply as many [wafers] as customers have requested,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) told reporters at a media gathering in Taipei.    [FULL  STORY]