PRODUCTION HALT: The iPhone maker cut its forecast sales growth to 1% to 3%, saying it would not be able to resume full production in China until late this month

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 06, 2020
By: Bloomberg

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) cut its revenue outlook for this year after deciding to

impose strict quarantines at its main base for making iPhones, a measure to guard against the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak that might hurt Apple Inc.

Hon Hai, which makes the vast majority of the world’s iPhones in Zhengzhou, China, officially resumes production on Monday next week after an extended Lunar New Year holiday.

However, workers returning from outside Henan Province — the site of its main factory — would be quarantined for 14 days, the company said in a statement, adding that any staff reporting to work who reside within the province would be isolated for seven days.

The lost production prompted Hon Hai to slash its revenue growth forecast for this year.
[FULL  STORY]

Move prompts Su Chu Lu to accuse Aberystwyth Market Hall stallholders of bigotry

The Guardian
Date: 4 Feb 2020
By: Haroon Siddique and agency

A market trader in Wales has accused fellow stallholders of bigotry after she was told to leave her stall because of fears she might have coronavirus.

Su Chu Lu, 54, returned to the historic indoor market in Aberystwyth, west Wales, after travelling to Taiwan – hundreds of miles from the centre of the outbreak in Wuhan – only for traders to tell her she was “putting them all at risk”.

Su, who has been running her stall for 15 years, said some traders held a meeting to ban her from reopening the shop in Aberystwyth Market Hall.    [FULL  STORY]

There had been reports that the pineapple shipment was impounded by Chinese customs

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/02/04
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer\

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The first batch of pineapples grown in Taiwan’s southern county of Pingtung has successfully arrived in the Chinese city of Xiamen, CNA reported on Tuesday (Feb. 4), citing the Agriculture and Food Agency’s (AFA) Southern Region Branch.

Previous reports indicated that a shipment was stuck at Chinese customs, according to CNA, but a cooperative association in Pingtung County managed to export their six tons of pineapples to Xiamen via the "Mini Three Links" on Monday. "The container holding the pineapples made it through customs with no problems," said Guo Zhi-wei (郭智偉), the person in charge of the association.    [FULL  STORY]

NO DISRUPTIONS: Nanya Technology said it has no production lines in China, so a viral outbreak there has had no effects on its product shipments and operations

Taipei Times
Date: Feb 05, 2020
By: Lisa Wang  /  Staff Reporter

DRAM chipmaker Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said that revenue last month rose

to the highest in three months on the back of rising chip prices and shipments.

A coronavirus outbreak in China would not disrupt its growth momentum this quarter, Nanya Technology said, adding that it intends to keep its business outlook unchanged for this quarter.

Revenue is expected to grow by a single-digit percentage point this quarter from last quarter, the chipmaker told investors last month.

For the remainder of this year, revenue would grow quarter by quarter as chip demand is expected to outpace supply, it said.

Consolidated revenue grew 3.92 percent to NT$4.5 billion (US$148.97 million) last month, compared with NT$4.33 billion in December last year..    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 02/04/2020
By: Frances Huang

Taipei, Feb. 4 (CNA) Shares in Taiwan made a strong technical rebound Tuesday to close above 11,500 points, as investors took cues from gains on the United States and Shanghai markets, dealers said.

While concerns lingered over the Wuhan coronavirus epidemic, the bellwether electronics sector attracted bargain hunting, helping to boost the broader market by more than 200 points by the end of the session, dealers said.

The weighted index on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (Taiex) ended up 201 points, or 1.77 percent, at 11,555.92, after moving between 11,393.03 and 11,581.36. Turnover totaled NT$159.7 billion (US$5.28 billion) during the session.

The market opened up 0.39 percent in reflection of an upturn on the U.S. markets Monday, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 0.51 percent, rebounding from a slump of about 2 percent slump in the previous session as investors were buying the dips, dealers said.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 02/04/2020
By: Lee Hsin-Yin

Taipei, Feb. 4 (CNA) When a new rationing system for surgical masks takes effect Thursday, all customers will be required to present their national health insurance (NHI)cards at pharmacies and drugstores to buy the masks, but a plan is still being worked out for those foreign nationals who do not have NHI coverage, the health ministry said Tuesday.

The ministry's statement came after the government on Monday announced a new mask-rationing system that effectively excluded about 50,000 foreign nationals who do not have NHI cards.

Under the rationing system, Taiwanese and foreign nationals with NHI cards will be allowed to buy two masks per week at drugstores and pharmacies, said Chang You-hsuan (張鈺旋), an official at the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW).

On Sundays, anyone will be able to buy the masks, once they present their NHI cards, but on the other days of the week, sales will be staggered based on the last digit of the ID number on the NHI card, Chang said.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, masks will be sold to people whose ID numbers end with an odd digit, while Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays will be for those with even-digit last numbers on their ID, she said.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwanese factories in China among those affected by coronavirus, which appears hard to contain

Taiwan News
Date: 2020/02/03
By: Huang Tzu-ti, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The coronavirus outbreak originating in China’s Wuhan has served as another catalyst for Taiwanese businesses to relocate from China after its prolonged trade conflict with the U.S. eases.

The 2019-nCoV outbreak, which has forced about 50 million Chinese into lockdown, is expected to deal a heavier blow to Taiwanese electronics companies based in China than did the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic. At that time, China had a significantly smaller presence in the industry, reported UDN.

The supply chain of electronic products is being disrupted, as factories in some seriously affected areas will not be allowed to reopen until mid-February. Taiwanese businesses bearing the brunt of the delayed opening are expediting the process of moving production out of the world’s second-largest economy to avoid the fallout from the incident.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 02/03/2020
By: Shih Hsiu-chuan and Emerson Lim\

Taipei, Feb. 3 (CNA) Taiwanese startup airline StarLux Airlines announced Monday it will cancel all of its flights between Taiwan and Macau from Feb. 8 to at least March 28 amid fears over the spread of the coronavirus epidemic gripping China.

The carrier, which started operations on Jan. 23, normally flies three round-trips a day to the special administrative region of China, but it canceled one of them on Jan. 30 as the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak escalated.

StarLux said it expected to resume its morning round-trip flight between Taoyuan and Macau on March 29, and resume the other two flights on June 1.

StarLux is not the only Taiwanese airline cutting capacity to cope with restrictions on travel across the Taiwan Strait to keep the coronavirus at bay. Hundreds of flights between Taiwan and China, Macau and Hong Kong will be canceled this month.    [FULL  STORY]

NOT ALL BAD:AU  Optronics Corp and Innolux Corp saw their shares rebound, as they might see their orders rise if the coronavirus affects their competitors in China

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

The TAIEX yesterday shed 140.18 points, or 1.22 percent, to close at 11,354.92 points, as investors’ concerns over the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus continued to affect market sentiment.

The TAIEX fared worse than its neighboring peers. Shares in Hong Kong gained 0.17 percent yesterday, while equities in Japan dipped 1.01 percent and those in South Korea were flat.

However, the Shanghai Composite Index dived nearly 8 percent on its first day of trading after the Lunar New Year holiday.

The drop in Taipei followed a more than 600-point plunge in the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Friday last week, as well as declines on the S&P 500 and NASDAQ Composite, as the local equity market is sensitive to Wall Street’s movements, Hua Nan Securities Investment Management Co (華南投顧) chairman David Chu (儲祥生) said by telephone yesterday.    [FULL  STORY]

The move may cut prices of PTA by as much as $30 per metric tonne of the product, according to RK Vij, general secretary of the PTA Users Association.

The Indian Express
Date: February 3, 2020
By:  Prabha Raghavan :

The government’s decision to abolish anti-dumping duties on a raw material for synthetic fibre-based clothing and certain plastic-based products will bring down their manufacturing cost and potentially boost exports, say manufacturers. The move, announced “in public interest” in the Budget Saturday, does away with a previous NDA government decision to block countries like China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran, Korea and Thailand from substantially exporting the material — purified terephthalic acid (PTA) — to India.

It also follows “persistent” demand “for quite some time” from several industries to allow them to source the product at a more affordable rate.

“That particular product (PTA) is a raw material for many industries. There has been persistent demand that they should be allowed to source that particular product at an affordable rate, even if it means importing it,” said Sitharaman.

“We had a look at it, many had been waiting for it (to be removed). We thought at this time that when many industries are dependent on imported raw materials that we are allowing so many others to come in, why not allow this,” she said. The minister had said in her Budget speech that easy availability of this “critical input” at “competitive” prices was desirable to unlock “immense” potential in the textile sector, seen as a “significant” employment generator.    [FULL  STORY]