Business and Finance

Department stores expected to have posted strong sales in April

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/05/01
By: Huang Chiao-wen and Frances Huang

Taipei, May 1 (CNA) Department stores in Taiwan are expected to report strong 201505010016t0001gains in sales in April from the previous month because of aggressive promotional campaigns ahead of Mother’s Day, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) said Friday.

The MOEA estimated department store sales in April at NT$25.5 billion (US$83.06 billion), about 23 percent higher than a month earlier.

The sales would reverse a 27.5 percent month-on-month fall recorded in March, which saw sluggish sales because it came after the Lunar New Year holiday in February.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan passes law requiring profit-sharing

Central News Agency
Date: 2015-05-01
By: Tai Ya-chen and Scully Hsiao            

Taipei, May 1 (CNA) The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Labor Day Friday that will require businesses to share their profits with their employees.

The amendment to the Company Act said that companies must make a commitment in their charters to share a “reasonable” lump sum amount or a specific percentage of their annual pre-tax profits as bonuses in the form of stock or cash. The amounts or percentages would be left to each company’s discretion, but the law did not offer any guideline on what “reasonable” distributions might be. Companies that ran a profit in a particular year could use the earnings to offset accumulated losses from previous years and would not have to share a portion of the gains with employees. The amendment also will not apply to state-run enterprises unless the agencies overseeing them stipulate that profits should be shared. The changes are the first to be passed from among amendments to four laws and statutes proposed to improve the well-being of Taiwan’s working population, which faces stagnant wages amid rising commodity and housing prices. Lawmakers remain divided over proposed changes to the Labor Standards Act, Factory Act, and Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) Development Statute that seek to shorten the work week, enforce the profit-sharing clause and give companies incentives to raise employee wages.

Dell Taiwan fined NT$2m for restraining competition

Want China Times
Date: 2015-04-30
By: CNA

The Taiwan branch of Dell, the world’s third-largest PC maker, was fined NT$2

A Dell logo in front of its Taiwan branch in Taipei, July 2009. (Photo/Wang Chin-ho)

A Dell logo in front of its Taiwan branch in Taipei, July 2009. (Photo/Wang Chin-ho)

million (US$65,600) Wednesday by Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC) for taking action to restrain competition.

Dell Taiwan was found to have violated fair trade rules pertaining to “causing another enterprise to discontinue supply, purchase or other business transactions with a particular enterprise for the purpose of injuring that enterprise,” the FTC said in a statement.

In 2013, Dell Taiwan asked a local distributor of an anti-virus suite not to supply the product to the southern region branch of Chunghwa Telecom, according to the findings of the FTC investigation.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan should seek opportunities in China’s next five-year plan

Want China Times
Editorial
Date: 2015-04-30

China’s 13th five-year development plan, which Beijing has been preparing

Construction workers build a communications tower at the Haiyang Nuclear Power Plant, one of the key energy projects under the 13th five-year plan, in Yantai, Shandong province, April 23. (File photo/Xinhua)

Construction workers build a communications tower at the Haiyang Nuclear Power Plant, one of the key energy projects under the 13th five-year plan, in Yantai, Shandong province, April 23. (File photo/Xinhua)

since April 2014, is expected to become the basis of the country’s economic policy from 2016 to 2020 after it is rubber-stamped by the National People’s Congress next March.

As China enters a period of economic restructuring being described as the “new normal,” it will almost certainly lower its economic growth projections for the next five years and play down the importance of growth as it focuses on reshaping the economy.

It is believed China will set an annual GDP growth target of 6.5% in the 13th five-year plan.     [FULL  STORY]

Economy up 3.46%, but misses forecast

DISAPPOINTING:The DGBAS attributed the lackluster performance to poor private investment and government spending, which dipped 1.2% and 2.5% respectively

Taipei Times
Date: May 01, 2015
By: Crystal Hsu  /  Staff reporter

The economy grew 3.46 percent year-on-year last quarter on the back of exports, but missed the government’s forecast of 3.5 percent due to weak private investment and fiscal spending, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday.

The expansion, while better than the 3.35 percent increase three months earlier, translated into a parlous 0.27 percent gain on a seasonally adjusted basis, slowing from 1.17 percent in the preceding quarter, the DGBAS said in a report.     [FULL  STORY]

TSMC global market share tops 50% in 2014

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/04/30
By: Jackson Chang and Frances Huang

Taipei, April 30 (CNA) Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積201504300024t0001電) said Thursday that its global market share surpassed 50 percent in 2014, helping it keep the title of the world’s largest contract chip maker.

In its annual report, TSMC said that its global market share rose to 54 percent in 2014, up from 49 percent recorded a year earlier, on the back of strong demand for the chip maker’s advanced technology processes.

It was the fifth consecutive year in which TSMC had posted growth in its global market share.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan’s LPF hands out $1 billion in local mandates

Asia Asst Management
Date: 29 April 2015
By: Hui Ching-hoo

Taiwan’s largest pension, the Labor Pension Fund (LPF), has allotted a fresh batch of quotas worth NT$30 billion (US$1 billion) to six local managers.

The pension governing body, the Bureau of Labor Funds (BLF), said in its monthly report that the bureau doled out NT$15 billion in quotas in domestic mandates under the LPF’s defined benefit Old Scheme in March. The appointed managers included: Cathay, SinoPac, Fuh Hwa, HSBC Global Asset Management (Taiwan), and Allianz Global Investors Taiwan.

Meanwhile, the BLF also granted another NT$15 billion in quota to managers for the domestic mandate under the fund’s defined contribution New Scheme. Each manager was awarded a quota of NT$2.5 billion.

Up to the end of March, the LPF had total AUM of NT$1.34 trillion. Of this, NT$1.03 billion worth of assets were managed in-house, equivalent to year-to-date growth of 0.18%. The pension’s outsourced assets amounted to around NT$11.7 trillion, translating into year-to-date growth of 1.58%.

The pension’s combined year-to-date growth rate was 0.96%, falling short of its guaranteed return of a two-year fixed deposit rate at 1.39%.

Target prices on HTC shares cut by foreign brokerages

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/04/29
By: Lo Hsiu-wen and Frances Huang

Taipei, April 29 (CNA) Several brokerages have cut their target prices on shares of smartphone vendor HTC Corp. (宏達電) after the company gave a disappointing outlook for the second quarter of this year.

In a research note, BNP Paribas said that although HTC will launch new models starting from the current three-month period, the new products could fail to boost the smartphone vendor’s shipments for the rest of the year.

Among other foreign brokerages that are downbeat toward HTC, BNP Paribas has forecast that HTC’s shipments for 2015 will total 18 million units, down 13 percent from a year earlier.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan manufacturing activity improves: think tank

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2015/04/29
By: Chen Cheng-wei and Frances Huang

Taipei, April 29 (CNA) The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台灣201504290014t0001經濟研究院) said Wednesday that manufacturing activity in Taiwan improved in March from a month earlier because of higher industrial production and export orders in the month.

TIER, one of Taiwan’s leading economic think tanks, said the manufacturing composite index for March stood at 11.54 points, up 1.28 from February’s 10.26, and it flashed a “yellow-blue” light, improved from February’s “blue” light.

The think tank uses a five-light system to describe the state of the economy, with red indicating overheating, yellow-red representing fast growth, green showing stable growth, yellow-blue hinting at sluggish growth and blue indicating negative growth.     [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan Leaps Past Tigers as Economy Upgrades With IPhone

Bloomberg
Date: April 28, 2015
By Justina Lee

Taiwan is poised to race ahead of its fellow Asian tigers for the fourth straight 750x-1quarter, as consumers loosen purse strings and companies churn out new iPhones.

The island is forecast to report first-quarter economic growth of 3.5 percent on Thursday, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News, at least 1 percentage point more than South Korea and Singapore and the projection for Hong Kong. Such outperformance has driven the currency to the top of Asia this year and the benchmark equity index to about 10,000 for the first time in 15 years.     [FULL  STORY]