Focus Taiwan
Date: 05/04/2020
By: Chung Jung-feng and Frances Huang

Taipei, May 4 (CNA) Taiwan-based Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., the world's largest contract electronics maker, said Monday its production sites in China are running normally and denied rumors it had put large numbers of workers on furlough.

Hon Hai, known internationally as Foxconn, was responding to reports in Chinese and Hong Kong news media that it has asked some workers at its Shenzhen complex to take unpaid leave because of sharply falling orders due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Apple Daily in Hong Kong, Tencent affiliate qq.com and other media said Hon Hai's unpaid leave program began May 1 and will continue until Sept. 1, a move necessitated by Apple closing its stores outside China because of the spread of the new coronavirus disease.

Hon Hai is the biggest iPhone assembler, and the widespread closure of Apple stores and lower iPhone sales have led to a big fall in its orders, the reports said.    [FULL  STORY]

CLOUDY OUTLOOK: Should the pandemic persist in the second half of the year, it would deal a heavy blow to Taiwan’s export-dependent economy, the CIER said

Taipei Times
Date: May 05, 2020
By: Crystal Hsu / Staff reporter

The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month tumbled to 47.6, falling at the fastest pace in the survey’s history, as the COVID-19 pandemic diminished economic activity, but biotech and electronics suppliers benefited, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday.

Last month’s figure ended six straight months of increases and signaled a substantial deterioration in the health of the nation’s manufacturing sector, with companies unprecedentedly anxious about the future, it said.

PMI readings aim to capture the pulse of manufacturing activity, with values larger than 50 indicating an expansion and those lower than the threshold suggesting a contraction.“The industry has emerged from concerns over supply chain disruptions after China resumed manufacturing activity, but fears loom over languid demand, if the eurozone, the US and some Asian markets remain closed to combat the virus,” CIER vice president Wang Jiann-chyuan (王健全) told an online news conference. 
[FULL  STORY]

Forbes
Date: May 3, 2020
By: Russell Flannery, Forbes Staff

Shares in U.S. electronics component supplier Kemet closed at a four-month high at the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, ending a week in which China regulators approved its $1.8 billion purchase by Yageo Corp. of Taiwan.

Yageo, which makes electronic components such as capacitors and resistors, said on April 29 China’s Anti-Monopoly Bureau of the State Administration for Market Regulation had given a go-ahead to the Kemet deal. That follows a similar approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. on April 23. The two clearances complete all international antitrust approvals needed for the transaction, which is expected to wrap-up in the third quarter, Yageo said.

The Kemet acquisition, announced last November, is one of the largest in the U.S. by a Taiwan company. It follows Yageo’s purchase of Pulse Electronics of San Diego in 2019 for $740 million, and will bring Yageo’s combined U.S. transactions to $2.5 billion in two years. Kemet is headquartered in Florida.    [FULL  STORY]

Ching Sheng Hotel at Sun Moon Lake in Nantou County and Tayih Landis Hotel in Tainan City to shutter in May and June

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/05/03
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Ching Sheng Hotel (景聖樓) at Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan’s Nantou County and Tayih Landis Hotel in Tainan City (台南大億麗緻酒店) will close their doors in May and June, respectively, due to economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, CNA reported on Sunday (May 3).

According to the report, Ching Sheng Hotel, run by Wenwu Temple, will close on May 26 and lay off 24 employees. Wen Wu Temple Chairman Chang De-lin (張德林) said on Sunday the hotel has lost more than NT$10 million (US$330,000) over the past four years.

He added the situation had been exacerbated by a big decline in the number of Chinese coming to Taiwan. The hotel will be closed to prevent further losses, CNA quoted Chang as saying. An employee said the hotel is set to shutter on May 26.

Meanwhile, Tayih Landis Hotel, the first five-star hotel in Tainan, has reportedly decided to shutter on June 30. Hotel owner Tayih Group rented the building from the building owner, Cathay Life Insurance, and opened the hotel in 2002.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 05/03/2020
By: Pan Tzu-yu and Kay Liu

Taipei, May 3 (CNA) Changes are expected in the post-globalization world created by trade friction between the United States and China, especially after the fragility of supply chains has been exposed by the COVID-19 conoravirus pandemic, experts have said.

The globalized world that saw the rise of China and relative decline of the U.S. is set to change because of trade disputes between the two largest economies in the world and the outbreak of COVID-19, said Darson Chiu (邱達生), a research fellow at the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, in a recent interview with CNA.

China's lack of transparency regarding the COVID-19 outbreak is likely to hurt other countries' confidence in Beijing, and affect the progress of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade negotiations, Chiu said.

According to the most recent joint declaration made last November by the 10 ASEAN countries, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India, most were preparing to sign the RCEP pact except India, which had outstanding issues to be resolved.    [FULL  STORY]

PANDEMIC AID: Seventy-one percent of non-government relief were approved by state-run banks, for an average of NT$13 million per application, FSC data showed

Taipei Times
Date: May 04, 2020
By: Kao Shih-ching / Staff reporter

Local banks had approved 8,254 loan applications totaling NT$124 billion (US$4.16 billion) for businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic as of Wednesday last week, a surge of 63 percent and 51.9 percent respectively from a week earlier, according to figures released by the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC).

Seventy-two percent of the loans, or NT$89.9 billion, were provided to 7,778 companies under a Ministry of Economic Affairs assistance program for the nation’s manufacturers and small and medium-sized enterprises, commission data showed.

The ministry last month announced that it would subsidize interest payments for companies whose revenue dropped by at least 15 percent from last year’s average, on condition that the companies do not reduce their employees’ working hours or salaries.

Another 27.5 percent of the loans, or NT$34.1 billion, were offered to 473 tourism agencies, airlines, hotels and transportation firms. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications is to help subsidize those firms with interest payments and handling fees.    [FULL  STORY]

Tech company stands accused of invasive tracking of its users' habits

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/05/02
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Amid international concern about close ties between Chinese technology groups like Huawei Technologies and the communist government, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corporation is facing accusations it has been recording millions of users’ private data and browsing habits in a more invasive manner than its competitors.

According to a report by Forbes Magazine, a cybersecurity expert found that a large amount of his data and online behavior using a Redmi Note 8 smartphone were being harvested, tracked, and sent to a remote server, while connections could be made between the individual user and the data collected.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 05/02/2020
By: Pan Tzu-yu and Frances Huang

Taipei, May 2 (CNA) The local manufacturing sector continued to feel the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic with an index gauging the health of the sector flashing a "yellow-blue" in March, signaling sluggish growth, according to the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER).

Data compiled by TIER showed the composite index for the manufacturing sector in March fell 1.73 points from a month earlier to 11.03, with the yellow-blue light category ranging from 10.5 to 13.

TIER, one of Taiwan's leading think tanks, uses a five-color system to describe economic activity, with red indicating overheating, yellow-red showing fast growth, green representing stable growth, yellow-blue signaling sluggish growth and blue reflecting contraction.

The think tank said the worldwide spread of the virus has weakened global demand and caused international crude oil prices to plunge, so major old economy industries such as petrochemicals, rubber, base metals and machinery makers generally flashed a blue light in March.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 05/01/2020
By: Wu Hsin-yun and Frances Huang

Taipei, May 1 (CNA) A group of labor funds managed by the Bureau of Labor Funds had suffered massive losses of more than NT$470 billion (US$15.67 billion) as of the end of March, when equity markets at home and abroad plunged amid an escalation of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

In a statement, the bureau under the Ministry of Labor said Friday the labor funds, including the Labor Insurance Fund, the Labor Pension Fund, and the Employment Insurance and Wage Arrears Payment Fund, posted a combined loss of NT$471.2 billion, with a return of minus 11.16 percent at the end of March.

During that month, the benchmark weighted index on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, or Taiex, shed 1,584.11 points, or 14.03 percent, as the virus escalated in the United States and European countries, particularly Italy and Spain.

The bureau said that as many major economies moved to impose lockdowns in efforts to contain the disease, it caused a scaleback of production, undermined the global supply chain and hurt consumption, which plunged financial markets worldwide downward in the month.    [FULL  STORY]