Focus Taiwan
Date: 09/10/2020
By: Christie Chen
Taipei, Sept. 10 (CNA) The U.S. dollar was traded at NT$29.280 at 10 a.m. Thursday on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, down NT$0.25 from the previous close. [SOURCE]
Business and Finance
CNAIC, AmCham call for trade deal
OPPORTUNE CHANCE: The economies of Taiwan and the US have rapidly become more integrated amid concern about the security of supply chains, the organizations said
Taipei Times
Date: Sep 10, 2020
By: Crystal Hsu / Staff reporter
Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua, center, smiles after a signing ceremony in Taipei yesterday as American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei chairman C.W. Chin, left, and Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce chairman Lin Por-fong, right, hold copies of a joint statement calling for a Taiwan-US bilateral trade agreement.
Photo: CNA
The call came after President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Aug. 28 announced that Taiwan would ease restrictions on US beef and pork imports.
“The move eliminates what had been a major obstacle to entering into such an agreement,” the two organizations said a joint statement.
They have long pushed for such an agreement. [FULL STORY]
CPI falls for seventh month in a row
EASING: An official dismissed concern over deflation, as the pace of price declines has been slowing and inflation might return to positive if oil prices stabilize
Taipei Times
Date: Sep 09, 2020
By: Crystal Hsu / Staff reporter
People pass by an outlet in Taipei yesterday. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics announced that the consumer price index last month rose 0.18 percent from the previous month, but fell 0.33 percent from a year earlier.
Photo: CNA
It was the seventh straight month that consumer prices had declined, but the retreat has been tapering off as shopping, dining and domestic tourism pick up, the statistics agency said.
“The inflationary gauge might return to the positive zone if international oil prices stabilize, as the virus outbreak’s effects on consumer activity have wound down,” DGBAS Senior Executive Officer Chiou Shwu-chwen (邱淑純) told a media briefing.
The trend shows that there is no need to worry about deflation, given that the pace of contraction is slowing, Chiou said. [FULL STORY]
GE, CTCI Score 6.5-GW Gas Power Contract Win in Taiwan
Power Magazine
Date: Sep 5, 2020
By: Sonal Patel
General Electric International Inc. (GE) and consortium partner Taiwanese engineering services firm CTCI have bagged a multi-billion-dollar engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contract for five combined cycle gas-fired power units in Taiwan.
The consortium will build three new units at the 3.9-GW Hsinta Power Plant and two new units at the 2.6-GW Taichung Power Plant. The two plants owned by state-owned utility Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower) are slated to come online in phases, starting in 2024.
Power Plants Based on HA Technology
As part of the project scope, GE Gas Power will deploy 10 7HA.03 gas turbines—the newest model in its 2014-launched high-efficiency air-cooled (HA) gas turbine line—as well as five steam turbine, 15 generators, and 10 heat recovery steam generators. CTCI will provide engineering and construction of civil work and erection for the generating units, as well as the balance of plant.
GE said the award will become an order “following contract closure and payment, which is expected within six months.” The win is a big one for the U.S.-based conglomerate, which has seen demand for large gas turbines decline as competition in the gas turbine sector grows more intense. In the first half of 2020, the company recorded only eight orders for heavy-duty gas turbines, compared to 27 for the same period in 2019. Its HA-turbine orders also fell to just two turbines in the first half, compared to 10 for the same period in 2019.
GE told POWER when it unveiled the 7HA.03 last year that the new model has a single-cycle net output of 430 MW—a sizable boost compared to its forerunner, the 7HA.02, which is rated at 384 MW, and the first-generation gas turbine in the HA class, the 7HA.01, which is rated at 290 MW. In combined cycle, a 1×1 7HA.03 plant can offer 640 MW, and in a 2×1 configuration, rated output reaches 1,282 MW. Like previous HA models, the 7HA.03 features a 10-minute start-up, but it remarkably intensifies the ramp rate to 75 MW per minute. [FULL STORY]
Taiwan mask maker CSD builds new factory amid coronavirus pandemic
Daily production could more than double to 2 million masks: CSD
Taiwan News
Date: 2020/09/04
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Surging demand is leading mask maker CSD to spend NT$120 million (US$4.09 million) on a new factory not far from its headquarters in Changhua City, reports said Thursday (Sept. 3).
The Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has led to worldwide demand for surgical masks to explode. On Friday (Sept. 4), investigators were questioning the manager of a company accused of importing masks from China and passing them off as Taiwanese products.
At present, CSD produced between 700,000 and 750,000 masks per day, but once its new factory in Huatan, Changhua County, came online, a gradual expansion to a total of 2 million masks per day would no longer be a problem, CNA reported.
Production was expected to start during the third quarter of 2021, with part of the masks slated for export, management said. Initially, surgical face masks were already a popular product inside Taiwan, with CSD as the leading brand. [FULL STORY]
U.S. dollar closes higher on Taipei forex market
Focus Taiwan
Date: 09/04/2020
By: Y.F. Low
Taipei, Sept. 4 (CNA) The U.S. dollar rose against the Taiwan dollar Friday, gaining NT$0.006 to close at NT$29.537.
Turnover totaled US$1.06 billion during trading session.
The greenback opened at the day's high of NT$29.540, and moved to a low of NT$29.310 before rebounding. [SOURCE]
TSMC Predicted To Significantly Grow Revenue This Quarter
WCCF (Where Consumers Come First)
Date: Sep 4, 2020
By: Ramish Zafar
Taiwanese semiconductor fabrication company TSMC is one of the handful of corporations that have managed to breeze past this year's post-pandemic virus disruption. TSMC, which is responsible for fulfilling the processor supply needs of companies such as Apple and AMD, has made a name for itself through its leading-edge processor fabrication nodes. Its 7nm manufacturing processes have provided AMD with a serious leg up over chip behemoth Intel Corporation, and its next-generation 5nm node is expected to give Apple's upcoming iPhones a serious competitive advantage over their competitors.
Now, as we enter into the end of this year's third quarter, analysts are starting to present their estimates of TSMC's revenue. These estimates fall in line with what the firm provided in its guidance for the quarter in July and sit smack in the middle of TSMC's estimated range.
MediaTek Applies For License To Supply Huawei With Smartphone Chips
TSMC's Q3 2020 Research Firm Revenue Estimates Will Mark 10% Sequential and 20% Year-over-Year Growth
The estimate is reported by Chinese publication TechWeb and it predicts that the company will grow its revenues both year-over-year and sequentially. During the second quarter of 2020, TSMC earned $10.4 billion in revenue and in the third quarter of 2019, it posted $9.4 billion in revenue. Subsequently, the estimate shared by TechWeb speculates that at the end of this quarter, the Taiwanese firm will have grown revenue by 10% sequentially and 20% year-over-year. [FULL STORY]
Taiwan’s MediaTek announces Dimensity 5G chip to power T-Mobile smartphone
T-Mobile’s LG Velvet equipped with MediaTek’s Dimensity 1000C available in stores September 10
Taiwan News
Date: 2020/09/04
By: Eric Chang, Taiwan News, Contributing Writer
(Wikimedia Commons photo)
The 7 nm Dimensity 1000C brings upper mid-tier performance at a reasonable price, and marks the first time that a Dimensity chip is being used on a device sold outside of China, according to XDA Developers. MediaTek had previously announced during a second quarter 2020 earning call that its 5G Dimensity chips would begin shipping outside China in the third quarter.
According to the MediaTek press release, the Dimensity 1000C has an octa-core CPU with four Cortex-A77 cores and four Cortex-A55 cores that all operate at 2 GHz, while the GPU is the Mali-G57 with five cores. It supports LPDDR4X memory up to 12 GB and UFS 2.2 storage.
The chip enables AV1 HDR on Netflix and AV1 video streaming on YouTube. The Dimensity 1000 is also able to listen for multiple trigger words to activate virtual assistants like Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa, in addition to supporting dual display. [FUILL STORY]
Taiwan shares close down 0.94 percent
Focus Taiwan
Date: 09/04/2020
By: Flor Wang
Taipei, Sept. 4 (CNA) Taiwan shares closed down 120.02 points, or 0.94 percent, at 12,637.95 Friday on turnover of NT$230.537 billion (US$7.81 billion). [SOURCE]
Ghost Month puts brakes on home market recovery
CENTRAL LURE: A realty broker said that there has been an influx of interest in Taichung properties due to improving infrastructure and relative affordability
Taipei Times
Date: Sep 05, 2020
By: Crystal Hsu / Staff reporter
Housing transactions last month totaled 21,686 units in the six special municipalities, an 8.1 percent month-on-month fall as some buyers avoided closing deals in Ghost Month, while others demanded bigger price concessions, brokers said.
However, that was a 24.6 percent increase from August last year, a sign that the property market has emerged from disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, although the virus situation continues to cloud the economic scene at home and abroad.
“For better or worse, some Taiwanese stand by the tradition not to transact during Ghost Month, which is from Aug. 19 to Sept. 16 this year,” Sinyi Realty Inc (信義房屋) research manager Tseng Ching-der (曾敬德) said.
The tradition accounted for the sequential fall in transactions last month, while the year-on-year increase was due to pent-up demand after the pandemic was brought under control in Taiwan, Tseng said. [FULL STORY]
