Business and Finance

Innolux CEO resigns in shake-up

PARTNERSHIPS: Innolux is to purchase a 4.14% share of Vizio for US$45 million to ensure another destination for its flat panels and to boost its TV assembling business

Taipei Times
Date: Jun 21, 2018
By: Lisa Wang  /  Staff reporter, in Miaoli

Innolux Corp (群創) yesterday said chairman and chief executive officer Wang Jyh-chao (王志超) has resigned in a major managerial shake-up that would deepen the panelmaker’s restructuring efforts.

Innolux is an LCD manufacturing arm of Foxconn Technology Group (富士康), known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) in Taiwan.

Personnel adjustments might help accelerate the “integration between panel businesses within the group,” said Wang, who is to serve as a consultant to Innolux.

Wang, who doubles as head of Foxconn’s “K” business group, is overseeing the construction of the group’s G10.5 fab in Guangzhou, China, and its first fab in the US.    [FULL  STORY]

Councilor of Taichung in central Taiwan calls for formulating regulations to rein in e-bikes

Taiwan News  
Date: 2018/06/19
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)—Is there any law in Taiwan that can hold electric bicycles,

(By Wikimedia Commons)

which ramp about the streets of the country, in check?

Taichung Mayor Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), said in the city council on Tuesday that besides enforcing current regulations applying to e-bikes, the city government will call for the central government to initiate legislation for comprehensive e-bike regulation, according to media reports.

Taichung City Councilor Lai Yi-huang (賴義鍠) said during a council meeting that e-bikes are migrant workers’ favorite transportation tool as riding an e-bike, which can go quite fast, requires no plate on the vehicle, no driver’s license, and there is no age limit for the rider. E-bikes are ramping around city streets with no laws to regulate them, he said, calling for the city government to come up with specific measures that can rein in the vehicle, the reports said.

In response, the mayor kicked the can down the road and said the city government will ask the central government to introduce legislation to comprehensively regular e-bikes, the reports said.       [FULL  STORY]

Over 420,000 Singaporeans visited Taiwan in 2017: Tourism Bureau

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/06/19
By: Huang Tzu-chiang and William Yen

Taipei, June 19 (CNA) Over 420,000 Singaporeans visited Taiwan in 2017, the highest

CNA file photo

number of visitors from the city state since the establishment of the Singapore Office of the Taiwan Visitors Association (TVA), the office’s Director Trust Lin (林信任) said Tuesday.

According to Taiwan’s Tourism Bureau statistics, visitors from Singapore were recorded as 425,577 in 2017, 407,267 in 2016, 393,037 in 2015, 376,235 in 2014, 364,733 in 2013, 327,253 in 2012, 299,599 in 2011 and 241,334 in 2010.

Visitor numbers have been on a steady increase since 2010 after a slight drop to 194,523 in 2009 from 205,449 in 2008, the statistics show.

Lin said that in 1978, when the office was first set up in the city state, approximately 40,000 Singaporeans visited Taiwan, but numbers have continuously increased.
[FULL  STORY]

Nan Ya fears trade row will sap demand

UNCERTAINTIES: The trade spat between the US and China would likely affect Nan Ya’s electric material products, as the latest US tariffs target high-tech sectors

Taipei Times
Date: Jun 20, 2018
By: Kuo Chia-erh  /  Staff reporter

Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠), a major unit of Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團), yesterday gave a conservative outlook for the rest of this year, saying that customer demand for its electric materials might weaken due to an escalating US-China trade spat.

Oil prices and US-China tensions are the two big uncertainties for Nan Ya’s operations, chairman Wu Chia-chau (吳嘉昭) told reporters on the sidelines of an annual shareholders’ meeting in Taipei.

US President Donald Trump on Monday directed the US Trade Representative to identify US$200 billion worth of Chinese goods for additional tariffs of 10 percent, escalating tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

The latest development came after the US last week announced a 25 percent tariff on up to US$50 billion worth of Chinese goods, prompting Beijing to respond with a 25 percent tariff on US$34 billion of US products.    [FULL  STORY]

Gov’t to help Taiwan companies expand halal food exports

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-06-18

The government will help Taiwanese food companies export their halal products to the

The government will help Taiwanese food companies export their halal products to the global market. (Photo by RTI)

global market. That’s the word from the head of the economics ministry’s Bureau of Foreign Trade, Yang Jen-ni.

During an interview with RTI on Friday, Yang said that there is high potential in the halal market. She said that the 1.6 billion Muslims account for about one third of the global population. She said that more than half of them live in Asia, with many residing in nations targeted by the Taiwan government’s New Southbound Policy.

That policy aims to create closer cultural and economic ties with nations in South and Southeast Asia, as well as New Zealand and Australia.    [FULL  STORY]

Chinese yuan deposits fall for 4th straight month

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/06/18
By: Chiu Po-sheng and Frances Huang

Taipei, June 18 (CNA) Chinese yuan deposits held by banks operating in Taiwan were down at the end of May for a fourth straight month, in part because of the yuan’s recent weakening against the U.S. dollar, according to the central bank.

The balance of yuan deposits received by Taiwanese banks, including negotiable certificates of deposit (NCDs), totaled 311.28 billion yuan (US$48.34 billion) at the end of May, down 4.28 billion yuan from the end of April.

Ho Pei-chen (賀培真), a specialist with the central bank, said many investors in Taiwan decided not to renew their yuan time deposit contracts after the agreements expired amid the falling yuan.    [FULL  STORY]

Adata to pay cash dividends of NT$6

GOING STRONG: The memory module supplier expects limited new supply and rising demand for gaming PCs, cloud computing and data centers to fuel growth this year

Taipei Times
Date: Jun 19, 2018
By: Lisa Wang  /  Staff reporter

Shareholders of memory module supplier Adata Technology Co (威剛科技) on Friday approved a proposal to distribute a cash dividend of NT$6 per common share — the highest in four years, the company said.

That represented a payout ratio of 69.85 percent based on the company’s earnings of NT$8.59 per share last year. Earnings last year totaled NT$1.84 billion (US$61.33 million) — the highest since 2013.

Last year “was the longest upcycle in the history of the memorychip industry as a supply crunch of DRAM and NAND flash memory chips drove up chip prices all the way to [early this year],” Adata chairman Simon Chen (陳立白) said in the company’s annual report.

The supply and demand imbalance was attributable to increased demand from cloud computing, big data and emerging cryptocurrency mining, along with limited supply amid a bottleneck in technological upgrade, Chen said in the report.   [FULL  STORY]

Taipei borough offices buy more than 5,000 cartons of bananas to help distressed farmers

As banana farmers are getting hit by low prices that resulted from overproduction, Taipei City Government is taking action to help the

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/06/17
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News)—As banana farmers are getting hit by low prices that resulted

(photo by Taipei City Government)

from overproduction, Taipei City Government is taking action to help them. The city government has called for its 12 district offices to help borough offices order bananas, according to the city government.

A total of 5,156 cartons—the equivalent of 77.34 metric tons—of bananas were purchases by the city’s boroughs in just three days between June 6 and June 8, the city government said.

According to the city government, Shan Lian-cheng, head of Shunxing Borough in Wenshan District, ordered 200 cartons of bananas for an upcoming Dragon Boat Festival celebration event in the borough. Shan, who had agriculture-related experience in the past, said that he could related to the feelings of the farmers, who have devoted more than 10 months of hard work for an income that doesn’t match up to their hard work, the city government said.

Linjiang Borough of Datong District ordered 200 cartons also for the borough’s Dragon Boat Festival event, the city government said, adding that Qunying Borough Chief Shi Zhong-sheng bought 100 cartons out of his own pocket to donate to charities and disadvantageous households in the borough.    [FULL  STORY]

Down for over 2 years, nuclear reactor back at full capacity

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/06/17
By: Pan Tzu-yu and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, June 17 (CNA) The No. 2 reactor at Taiwan’s Second Nuclear Power Plant in

Image taken from Taipower (tpcjournal.taipower.com.tw)

northern Taiwan was operating at full capacity at 10:30 a.m. Sunday after resuming operations early Wednesday, according to state-run utility Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower).

It was the first time the reactor was operating at full capacity in more than two years.

It went offline in May 2016 following a glitch in its electrical system during major maintenance work, then resumed operations on March 27 of this year, but automatically shut down the next day after it developed another glitch.

Taipower submitted an application on April 9 to the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) to restart the reactor. After convening several review meetings and conducting an on-site inspection on June 4, the AEC approved the restarting of the reactor.
[FULL  STORY]

AUO looks to LCD peak season prices

FIGHTING PRICE PRESSURES: The company’s chairman said revenue from panels that are used in cars is expected to increase by a double-digit percentage this year

Taipei Times
Date: Jun 18, 2018
By: Lisa Wang  /  Staff reporter

AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電), the nation’s second-largest LCD panel maker,

AU Optronics chairman Paul Peng, left, and company president Michael Tsai give the thumbs-up after the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Taichung on Friday.
Photo: Chen Mei-ying, Taipei Times

expects the downward pressure on prices of LCD TV panels to ease in the second half of this year, thanks to improving inventories and rising demand ahead of the peak season.

Since the beginning of this year, prices for TV panels, such as 32-inch and 40-inch screens, have dropped more than 20 percent, as TV vendors continued to scale down orders to level off their excessive stockpiles, the company said.

“It is unlikely that panel prices will hover at below-cost levels for a long period. The market will balance out eventually,” AUO chairman Paul Peng (彭雙浪) told a media briefing after the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Taichung on Friday last week.

As the LCD TV market is to enter its peak season in the third and fourth quarters, price declines should slow and the price of certain types of panels might even pick up, Peng said.

The ongoing FIFA World Cup would help stimulate TV sales, while most TV vendors are close to reducing their panel inventories to healthy levels, he said.
[FULL  STORY]