Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/12/03
By: Huang Chiao-wen and S.C. Chang

Taipei, Dec. 3 (CNA) Economics Minister John Deng (鄧振中) said on Thursday he will tell Philippine officials the following day at a bilateral ministerial meeting why signing an economic cooperation agreement (ECA) with Taiwan would be a mutually beneficial move.

Deng will depart for Manila Friday morning for the 21st economic cooperation meeting between the two countries during which both sides will discuss possible cooperation projects in e-commerce and recyclable energies.

Taiwanese investors used to balk at throwing big money into the Philippines because of its notorious power shortages and labor conditions.

Much improvement has been made in solving the electricity shortage issue, Deng said, as the southern neighbor has invested a lot in building new power plants, including those constructed by Taiwan’s Formosa Group.     [FULL  STORY]

CUTTING EDGE:The company expects double-digit growth in its annual revenue this year, thanks to the advances it has made in the 16-nanometer chip technology

Taipei Times
Date: Dec 04, 2015
By: Lisa Wang  /  Staff reporter in Hsinchu

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract

chipmaker, yesterday said that it expects the overall semiconductor industry to return to growth next year after a prolonged period of inventory correction.

TSMC said that is a positive sign for the industry, which might head for a recovery next quarter.

“Inventory correction in the industry would be mostly finished by the end of this year,” TSMC co-chief executive officer Mark Liu (劉德音) said in a keynote speech during the company’s annual Supply Chain Management Forum in Hsinchu.

“When we enter next year with a healthy level of inventory, we expect the semiconductor industry to return to growth trajectory,” Liu said.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/12/02
By: Tsai Yi‐chu and Lee Mei‐yu

Taipei, Dec. 2 (CNA) Taiwanese banks and insurers will be able to acquire 100 percent

shares of privately owned Vietnamese banks, Financial Supervisory Commission Chairman Tseng Ming‐chung (曾銘宗) said in Taipei on Wednesday after returning from a trip to Vietnam.

Tseng traveled to Vietnam — the first trip ever by the head of Taiwan’s financial regulatory agency — to create new opportunities for Taiwanese banks to extend their reach into the booming Southeast Asian market.

While there, he met with financial regulators and signed a memorandum of cooperation on banking.

Tseng, who has pushed measures to help Taiwanese banks grow in scale to match the size of regional counterparts, said the Vietnamese government promised to allow Taiwanese investors to own 30 percent of state‐owned banks and 100 percent of local privately owned banks.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/12/01
By: Chen Cheng-wei and Flor Wang

Taipei, Dec. 1 (CNA) Taiwan’s purchasing managers index (PMI) for the manufacturing sector fell for the fifth consecutive month in November, with all of the main factors in the index reflecting continued economic sluggishness.

The index fell to 45.1 during the month, just 0.1 higher than its low point (in August 2015) since it was first officially recorded in Taiwan in July 2012.

A PMI reading of above 50 indicates an expansion in manufacturing activity, while a figure below 50 signals contraction.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/11/30
By: Bernie Chiu and Lilian Wu

Taipei, Nov. 30 (CNA) Raising the possibility of adding to the deductions taxpayers can claim

to decrease their income tax burden would not be a tax cut and is by no means pork barrel politics, Finance Minister Chang Sheng-ford (張盛和) said Monday.

“This probably will not win over (voters),” Chang said, amid doubts that the ministry’s motivation in broaching possible changes was to woo voters prior to the Jan. 16 presidential and legislative elections.

He said the government was reacting to proposed changes to the income tax system raised last week by opposition Democratic Progressive Party Legislator (DPP) Hsueh Ling (薛凌) and several other lawmakers.

“There are around 45 such proposals,” Chang said, noting that the timing was not decided by the ministry but that it would study all of the proposals and decide which ones to include in a plan to be submitted in the next legislative session next year.     [FULL  STORY]

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/sport/archives/2015/11/30/2003633657GOING STRONG:The company’s chairman said that the market focused solely on new iPhones, adding that combined orders for new and old models have grown significantly

Taipei Times
Date:  Nov 30, 2015
By: Lauly Li  /  Staff reporter

Pegatron Corp (和碩), one of Apple Inc’s iPhone assemblers, is

to expand the production capacity of its plant in Kunshan, China, in the next two years to meet rising demand from its clients.

“Hypothetically speaking, if the Kunshan plant has 10,000 workers at the moment, the number would double next year and then quadruple the year after that,” Pegatron chairman Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢) told reporters on the sidelines of the 2015 IT Month opening ceremony in Taipei.

IT Month, an annual fair, is to run through Sunday in Taipei, then move on to Taichung from Dec. 11 to Dec. 16, to Kaohsiung from Dec. 24 to Dec. 29 and to Tainan from Jan. 8 to Jan. 13.     [FULL  STORY]