STRONG DEMAND:The company has committed to buying more than 2.2 gigawatts of renewable energy, making it the world’s largest non-utility green energy purchaser

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 25, 2016
By: Kuo Chia-erh / Staff reporter

Google hopes to purchase renewable energy in Taiwan for its data center in Changhua County, a company official said yesterday at the New Energy Leadership Forum in Taipei.

“Google has two data centers in Asia, one in Singapore and one in Taiwan. We have not purchased any renewable energy in Taiwan so far,” said Marsden Hanna, Google’s head for global energy policy and markets.

Hanna said the company’s long-term goal is for each of its data centers, including the one in Taiwan, to be 100 percent powered by renewable energy.

Google initially planned to purchase renewable energy from state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電), which has a monopoly in the nation’s electricity market. However, the company turned its back on Taipower, saying the energy provided by the utility is not “green” enough to satisfy its requirements.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 23, 2016
By: Crystal Hsu / Staff reporter

The nation’s jobless rate rose to 4.02 percent last month, as fresh graduates and an economic slowdown raised the gauge to the highest level in about two years, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.

The figures represent a new high since August 2014 after gaining 0.1 percentage points from 3.92 percent in June and picked up 0.2 percentage points from a year earlier, the agency said.

“The soft economy has weighed on the job market since the second half of last year, but the situation did not deteriorate much last month,” DGBAS senior executive officer Pan Ning-hsin (潘寧馨) said, adding that the jobless rate after seasonal adjustments stood unchanged at 3.96 percent.

The unemployed population increased by 13,000 people to 472,000 people last month from a month earlier, with 12,000 first-time job seekers and 1,000 people who lost their seasonal or temporary jobs, the report said.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2016-08-22
By: Huang Chiao-wen and Kuo Chung-han, Central News Agency

Taipei, Aug. 22 (CNA) Taiwan’s export orders fell for the 16 consecutive month in July compared with a year earlier, according to statistics released Monday.
Taiwan-based companies received US$35.03 billion in export orders in July, down 3.4 percent year-on-year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said.

The ministry earlier forecast that export orders in July could improve over last year’s numbers and said even if that is not the case, there is an 80 percent chance that export orders in August will exceed those of last year.

The 16 consecutive months of decline has been the longest in Taiwan’s history, eclipsing the previous record of 12 consecutive months of decline in orders during 2008 and 2009 when a financial crisis battered the global economy.     [SOURCE]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/08/22
By: You Kai-hsiang, Tien Yu-pin, Tsai Yi-chu and Y.F. Low

Taipei, Aug. 22 (CNA) Prosecutors will investigate Mega International Commercial Bank after it was fined US$180 million for violating anti-money laundering laws in the United States, the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office said Monday.

The case will be handled by the Taipei District Prosecutors Office, which will look into whether the bank violated Taiwan’s Money Laundering Control Act, Banking Act and Financial Holding Company Act, according to Chen Chuan-tzung, chief secretary of the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office.

New York State’s Department of Financial Service (DFS) announced on Aug. 19 that it had fined Mega Bank US$180 million, after identifying “a number of suspicious transactions” between the bank’s New York and Panama branches.

The DFS said it also discovered that “a substantial number” of the bank’s customer entities were formed with the assistance of the Mossack Fonseca law firm in Panama, one of the law firms at the center of the formation of shell company activity.     [FULL  STORY]

PERFORMANCE:Under new company president Tai Jeng-wu, Sharp is hoping to regain its brand image and encourage workers to take individual responsibility

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 23, 2016
By: Lauly Li / Staff reporter

Sharp Corp president Tai Jeng-wu (戴正吳) yesterday said he will forgo his salary as a member of Sharp’s board of directors, and cancel a base and managerial salary reduction as part of efforts to boost employee morale.

The cancelation of salary reductions is to take place next month at the earliest, Japan’s Sankei Shimbun and Nikkei Shimbun quoted Tai as saying.

Tai’s remarks came before the second day of Sharp’s internal two-day meeting in Japan.

The event was Tai’s first meeting after taking over from former president Kozo Takahashi on Aug. 14, when Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) injected ￥388.8 billion (US$3.86 billion) capital into the company.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/08/19
By: Lin Meng-ju and Y.F. Low

Taipei, Aug. 19 (CNA) A Taiwanese business delegation has signed a memorandum of understanding with three American companies on cooperation in the area of wind power technology, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said Friday.

The delegation, which is currently on a visit to the United States, was organized by the MOEA’s Industrial Development Bureau and includes Taiwan’s China Steel Corp., Taiwan Wind Turbine Industry Association and CR Classification Society.

The MOU was signed with ABSG Consulting Inc., a major verification organization for offshore wind farms in the world; Keystone Engineering, an innovator in fixed-bottom offshore wind foundation design; and Principle Power Inc., which specializes in floating foundations for offshore wind turbines.

Through the cooperation, Taiwan is hoping to bring Keystone and Principle Power’s technologies into the design of an offshore wind foundation that could resist typhoons and earthquakes, and to strengthen Taiwan’s offshore wind farm technology, the MOEA said.   [FULL  STORY]

TOURISM EARNINGS:A central bank official said statistics showed that Chinese tourists have high spending power and their decline led to a fall in tourist revenue

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 20, 2016
By: Ted Chen / Staff reporter

The nation’s financial account deficit continued to trend higher for the 24th consecutive quarter last quarter, central bank balance of payments (BOP) data showed.

The financial account saw net fund outflows of US$15.4 billion in the April-to-June quarter, rising US$6.2 billion from a year earlier as the public and life insurers increased their foreign investments, the central bank said yesterday.

Of the financial accounts, direct and portfolio investment saw net outflows of US$2.39 billion and US$15.21 billion respectively, the result of more bond investments abroad by local insurance firms and an increase in investment in foreign mutual funds by the public, it said.

Outflows in financial derivatives decreased by US$690 billion on a yearly basis last quarter, mainly because of gains on disposal of financial derivatives received by non-bank financial corporations, it said.     [FULL  STORY]

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 19, 2016
By: Kuo Chia-erh / Staff reporter

Taiwan Cement Corp (台泥) yesterday said it was optimistic about its sales outlook in the second half of the year, benefiting from recovering demand in China.

The nation’s biggest cement maker said demand in the coming months is expected to be supported by Chinese infrastructure need and residential property sector. The company is the seventh-largest cement maker in China by capacity.

“We saw strong infrastructure spending in China supported cement demand in the first half, which is expected to continue growing for the rest of the year,” Taiwan Cement senior vice president Edward Huang (黃健強) told an investors’ conference in Taipei.

As land purchases in China picked up after 16 months of decline in March, demand for residential property is improving and that might be the catalyst for sales in the second half, Huang said.     [FULL  STORY]