CHANGES:Given that Taiwan’s trade surplus with the US has shrunk and the NT dollar has rapidly appreciated, Taiwan should not remain on the list, Perng Fai-nan said

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 03, 2017
By: Crystal Hsu / Staff reporter

The US should remove Taiwan from its currency watch list next month, as the value of

New Taiwan dollar rose rapidly this year and much of the increase in the nation’s foreign-exchange reserves came from interest yields, instead of trading gains, central bank Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) said yesterday.

“I am confident that Taiwan will not, and should not, remain on the currency monitoring list, if the US applies the same criteria from October last year,” Perng told the legislature’s Finance Committee.

Lawmakers voiced concerns about tension with the US as the world’s largest economy has accused the central bank of intervening in the market to stem the NT dollar’s rise in a bid to help Taiwanese exporters.
Taiwan is home to the world’s largest contract chipmakers, chip designers and makers of electronic components used in smartphones, personal computers, connected vehicles and Internet of Things applications.
[FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: March 3, 2017
By: Christine Chou

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Local reports said U.S. memory solutions giant Micron Technology,

Inc. plans to make salary structure adjustments for former employees with the newly acquired Inotera Memories, Inc. (華亞科), one of Taiwan’s leading dynamic random access memory (DRAM) makers, which could potentially benefit more than 3,000 Inotera staff.

Micron completed its acquisition of Inotera last December — valued at more than NT$130 billion (US$4 billion) — and is scheduled to officially take over Inotera’s operations this Friday. The deal has made Micron the largest foreign employer and investor in Taiwan.

“All good things are worth waiting for, and the completion of this transaction is no exception,” said Micron Chief Executive Mark Durcan.    [FULL  STORY]

In 2017, the Taiwanese industry is anticipated to continue growing steadily owing in large part to the growth in the fabless IC sector as a result of the increasing smartphone orders

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/03/01
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

Taipei (Taiwan News)–Bolstered by the increased demand for smartphone ICs in the

second quarter of 2016, Taiwan’s semiconductor industry as a whole managed to witness a stronger year-on-year growth in 2016, higher than the global average, according to Taipei-based IT research institute MIC (Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute).

In 2017, the Taiwanese industry is anticipated to continue growing steadily owing in large part to the growth in the fabless IC sector as a result of the increasing smartphone orders and the sustained momentum in the foundry industry as a result of advanced process technologies, the IT industry research and consulting firm said.

With regard to the global semiconductor market, the market will be able to resume single-digit growth in 2017 as the PC market decline is slowing down and automotive electronics demand is taking off, MIC said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/03/01
By: Yang Shu-min and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, March 1 (CNA) Agriculture Minister Lin Tsung-hsien (林聰賢) said Wednesday

that he will work to protect the safety and basic rights of Taiwanese fishermen in waters close to Okinotori atoll, which belongs to Japan.

He was responding to local media reports that some fishermen were angry at the advice issued by Taiwan’s Fishery Agency that they should avoid fishing in waters near Okinotori in the West Pacific Ocean.

Lin, who took office on Feb. 8 as agriculture minister, said any fishing disputes between Taiwan and Japan in waters close to Okinotori can only be resolved by “diplomatic means.”

“Protecting the safety and basic fishing rights of all Taiwanese fishermen at sea” has been a policy of the Council of Agriculture, Lin said.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: March 2, 2017
By: Christine Chou

A subsidiary controlled by Terry Gou (郭台銘), founder and chairman of the world’s

largest contract assembler of consumer electronics Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. (鴻海), held a ground-breaking ceremony for a new Gen 10.5 8K display plant in the Chinese city of Guangzhou on Wednesday.

The 61 billion yuan (NT$276.7 billion) industrial area construction is the largest industrial investment Guangzhou has seen, expected to produce 90,000 display screens per month when fully operational, bringing in an annual productional value of 92 billion yuan (NT$411.2 billion), according to Chinese media.

The new Gen 10.5 fab seeks to boost capacity to meet increasing demands for ultra-high resolution displays and is scheduled to begin production in 2019.

Behind the new factory construction is Japan’s Sakai Display Products Corporation (SDP), of which Gou’s investment company is the majority shareholder, and the Guangzhou City municipal government.

SDP has experience operating the world’s only Gen 10 liquid crystal display (LCD) panel production line using 8K resolution technology.    [FULL  STORY]

The company seeks to raise capital via a spin-off that includes the second-largest NAND Flash supplier

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/02/28
By: Matthew Lubin, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Toshiba is looking to sell a majority stake in its memory

business after it is split off from the company. The Japan-based company had previously planned to sell a 19.9 percent stake in the business, its most valuable unit.

The stake sale has drawn attention from numerous competitors worldwide, including Taiwan’s Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. Other companies reportedly interested in acquiring the stake are South Korea-based SK Hynix, China-based Tsinghua Unigroup, Western Digital and Apple. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Microsoft had been rumored to be interested in the deal but both companies denied the rumors.

Toshiba is the second-largest supplier of NAND Flash with a 20 percent share of the market, trailing only Samsung.    [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 01, 2017
By: Lisa Wang / Staff reporter

Chinese handset maker Xiaomi Corp (小米) yesterday launched its first in-house mobile

phone chipset for its new smartphones to better suit clients’ needs, following in the steps of its rivals, including Huawei Technologies Inc (華為).

The new chipset, dubbed Surge S1, is to first be used in Xiaomi’s latest flagship model, the Mi 5c, the company said in a statement at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

The handsets are to be available in China from Friday at online and brick-and-mortar stores for 1,499 yuan (US$218.23) each.

Two-and-a-half years ago, Xiaomi established fully-owned chip design subsidiary Pinecone (松果) to develop chipsets for its own use.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: March 1, 2017
By: The China Post news staff

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Chunghwa Telecom, Taiwan’s leading telecom services provider, is

considering introducing the new Nokia 3310 smartphone into the domestic market to help upgrade its 2G consumers to 3G, according to the Central News Agency.

The company’s mobile telecom president, Tu Kuang-yuan, is currently attending the 2017 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, the world’s largest gathering for the mobile industry. Tu reportedly said that he would seek to negotiate with Nokia officials at the trade show regarding such a deal.

According to CNA, the new phone could go on sale for as little as NT$2,000 each.
{FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/02/27
By: Liu Te-tsang and Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, Feb. 27 (CNA) China Airlines (CAL) said Monday it will soon add an extra two round-trip flights per week on its Taoyuan-Bangkok route in celebration of the airline’s 50th anniversary flying that air link, on which it has served over 30 million passengers.

In addition to CAL’s current 26 round-trip flights per week between Taiwan (Taoyuan and Kaohsiung) and Bangkok, there will be another Taoyuan-Bangkok flight every Wednesday and Saturday starting on May 6, according to the carrier.

On those two days, the inbound flight, CI-832, will depart at 1:40 p.m. from Bangkok, while the outbound leg via CI-831 will leave Taoyuan at 9:20 a.m.

The move is also seen as being aligned with the government’s “new southbound policy,” which was devised to boost exchanges with Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries along with South Asia, Australia and New Zealand.    [FULL  STORY]