Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/08/27
By: Wei Shu and Frances Huang

Taipei, Aug. 27 (CNA) The number of new housing projects in Taipei City is expected to fall in 2015 to the lowest in 19 years due to a series of government’s measures to rein in home prices, a local property market magazine said Thursday.

According to My Housing magazine (住展雜誌), there have been only 100 new housing projects in Taipei so far this year and the number is unlikely to exceed 160 for the whole year.

That would be the lowest annual number since 1996, when new housing projects in the capital city totaled 152, the magazine said.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-08-27
By: CNA

Taiwan’s consumer confidence weakened for the fourth consecutive month in August

amid concerns over an economic slowdown at home and abroad, a survey by National Central University showed Thursday.

The survey results echoed a move by the government to downgrade its forecast for Taiwan’s 2015 economic growth to 1.56% from an earlier estimate of 3.28% at a time when global investors fear slowing demand, in particular from China, the second largest economy in the world.

The survey indicated that Taiwan’s consumer confidence index (CCI) for August fell 3.43 points from a month earlier to 86.15, marking a fall for four months in a row, according to the university’s Research Center for Taiwan Economic Development.

All six sub-factors in the CCI which reflect how consumers feel about aspects of Taiwan’s economy over the following six months trended lower in August, according to the research center.     [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/08/26
By: Huang Chiao-wen and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, Aug. 26 (CNA) Almost 7 percent of the land in Taipei is vulnerable to landslides

and tectonic plate movement, but is not categorized as unsafe for construction, according to the findings of a government geological study that was released Wednesday.

The vulnerable areas in Taipei total 18.5 square kilometers, or 6.81 percent of the city’s land area, the study by the Central Geological Survey under the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) showed.

The geological sensitive areas are mostly in the mountains around the Taipei Basin, in the districts of Beitou, Shilin, Neihu, Zhongshan, Nangang, Xinyi, Da’an and Wenshan, according to the report.

MOEA officials said the areas are categorized as grade-two environmentally sensitive, which means there is no ban on construction projects there.     [FULL  STORY]

Want China Times
Date: 2015-08-26
By: CNA

US-based technology firm InFocus suffered limited smartphone supplies in the first half

of 2015 as its major assembly partner, Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group, moved most of its capacity to produce Apple’s popular iPhones.

Lagging behind its competitors, InFocus held its first product launch in Taiwan this year on Tuesday to release three new smartphones, as the company was addressing a shortage of its previous phones and several components in the first half of 2015, said Steven Yeh, general manager of Commtiva Technology, the local distributor of InFocus phones and a sales arm of Foxconn.

He attributed the shortage of InFocus phones to limited production capacity allocated by Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer that has been busy making Apple’s iPhone 6 models as well as other Android phones for Chinese brands such as Huawei Technologies and Xiaomi since late 2014.     [FULL  STORY]