Gogoro Inc entered the market one-and-a-half years ago and has grown its ‘smart scooter’ business steadily, with ambitions to expand to Europe and Southeast Asia. Gogoro marketing director Chen Yang discussed the company’s outlook and vision in an interview with ‘Taipei Times’ staff reporter Lisa Wang at the company’s headquarters in Taoyuan on Jan. 23

Taipei Times
Date: February 5, 2017

Taipei Times (TT): According to government statistics, 20,628 electric motorbikes were sold in Taiwan

last year. How did Gogoro Inc (睿能創意) perform and what is the company’s outlook?

Chen Yang (陳彥揚): We sold 13,000 scooters last year [about 63 percent of the total] after selling 4,000 scooters in 2015. The strong sales is highly related to our battery swap network, GoStation. The more battery swap stations we built, the more scooters we sold.

Government support also plays an important role in boosting sales. Consumers receive as much as NT$25,000 in subsidies when they buy an electric scooter, which helps bring down the price of the “smart” scooter to close to that of a gasoline-fueled 125cc scooter.

We have increased the number of GoStations to about 300. People can swap battery packs at some convenience stores, CPC Corp (台灣中油) gas stations or Mass Rapid Transit stations in Taipei. Our goal next year is to expand the battery swap network to other major metropolitan cities including Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/02/05
By: Tsai Yi-chu and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, Feb. 5 (CNA) The state-owned CPC Corp., Taiwan (中油) announced Sunday that it will increase

its diesel and gasoline prices by NT$0.1 (US$0.003) per liter with effect from midnight.

After the hike, fuel prices at CPC gas stations will be NT$22.7 per liter for super diesel, NT$25 per liter for 92 octane unleaded, NT$26.5 per liter for 95 octane unleaded, and NT$28.5 for 98 octane unleaded.

CPC calculates its weekly fuel prices based on a weighted oil price formula comprising 70 percent Dubai crude and 30 percent Brent crude (7D3B). The company’s data showed the average price per barrel of 7D3B at US$54.72 last week, representing a rise of US$0.47 from the previous week.

Crude oil prices dropped on the international market in the first few days of last week due to strong optimism about increased shale oil output in the United States and a spike in its commercial crude inventory by 6.466 million barrels for the week of Jan. 27, according to CPC.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/02/04
By: Tsai Yi-chu and Frances Huang

Taipei, Feb. 4 (CNA) Loans extended by banks registered in Taiwan to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) here for 2016 surpassed the goal set by the government, according to the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC).

The FSC said such loans totaled NT$274.4 billion (US$8.85 billion) last year, topping the government’s goal of NT$240 billion.

As of December 2016, loans to SMEs were NT$5.7268 trillion, up from NT$5.4524 trillion recorded at the end of 2015, the statistics indicated.

The 5.73 trillion accounted for 58.79 percent and 61.56 percent of banks’ total loans to all enterprises in Taiwan and to the private sector, respectively, the FSC said.

Strong seasonal fund demand in December boosted the banks’ lending to SMEs for the entire year, according to the data.    [FULL  STORY]

The rate has remained the same as the year before at 3.8 percent, lower than the national rate of 3.92 percent, and the lowest of all six major cities.

Taiwan News
Date: 2017/02/03
By: Wendy Lee, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taichung has experienced the lowest rate of unemployment of

the six major cities in Taiwan in 2016, according to the Taichung Office of Budget, Accounting and Statistics’ data released on Friday.

The rate has remained the same as the year before at 3.8 percent, lower than the national rate of 3.92 percent, and the lowest of all six major cities.

The jobless rate for those with junior high school education and below was registered at 1.9 percent, the lowest among all education levels with a 0.7 percent decline from the year before, while the rate stood highest at 4.6 percent for those with college degrees, according to the statistics.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/02/03
By: Jalen Chung and Frances Huang

Taipei, Feb. 3 (CNA) Taiwan-based contract electronics maker Wistron Corp. (緯創) will set up a plant in India to roll out iPhones for Apple Inc., the Times of India said Friday.

The report added that Wistron is planning to build a plant near the Peenya industrial hub located in Bangalore in Karnataka state.

The report said the Karnataka government has issued a statement welcoming Apple’s proposal to make iPhones there.

According to the report, Wistron’s new plant is expected to kick off mass production in June.    [FULL  STORY]

The China Post
Date: February 4, 2017
By: Christine Chou

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Taiwan-based tech giant Asus (華碩) said Friday that it would

cooperate fully with investigations after it came under scrutiny by the European Union’s regulators for a suspected breach of competition rules.

“Asus has always committed to following the law and regulations. We have not yet received complete information regarding the European Commission’s investigation. We will first seek to understand the situation, then cooperate fully with regulators,” the company said.

Asus is among 15 companies targeted by the EU for violating antitrust regulations on Thursday, as the European Commission launched three separate investigations to tackle barriers to cross-border online trade and prevalent “geo-blocking” — unfairly restricting offers and cheaper prices based on a shopper’s location — which run counter to the EU’s goal of a single market for digital goods and services.   [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2017-02-02

The head of Taiwan’s state-owned power company on Thursday laid out the challenges

the company will face in the coming years.

Taipower head Chu Wen-chen said the company will face greater difficulty supplying power this year. Taipower is setting up a special team to ensure a supply of natural gas for new generators in the future. This will involve purchasing gas directly instead of through the state oil company. He also said Taipower will need a new direction to take when the national power market is opened up in the future.

Chu said securing supplies of natural gas will be especially important as several power stations are upgraded or change from burning oil and coal. He said that a receiving station for natural gas at one Taichung power plant is scheduled for completion in 2025. The economics ministry is reviewing the project’s feasibility.    [SOURCE]