Long Life to be sold in China
The nation's most popular cigarettes, Long Life, will be sold in China next year, Morgan Hwang (黃營杉), president of the Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp (台灣菸酒公司), said yesterday.
Hwang, who visited Chinese authorities in charge of tobacco monopoly sales recently, said Long Life will be sold in the Chinese market through a Chinese company in Hong Kong and Taiwanese distributors in various parts of China.
He estimated that sales of Long Life in China could reach 2 million cases per year, roughly equal to its sales in Taiwan.
His company will begin to select distributors soon.
China imposes duties on PVCs
China imposed import duties on polyvinyl-chlorides, or PVCs, from Taiwan, the US, Japan, South Korea and Russia because they sold the product at below cost in the country, cutting the profit of local producers, the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on its Web site.
Companies that export PVCs to China will be forced to pay duties based on the amount they sell and the price charged.
The additional duties will be in place for five years starting today, the Beijing-based ministry said.
Repurchase tax considered
The country is considering imposing a tax on interest earned from temporary purchases of bonds, transactions known as repurchase agreements.
The government hasn't made a decision, said Joanne Ling (凌忠嫄), income tax director at the Ministry of Finance, denying a Chinese-language newspaper report.
The move would help reduce tax evasion by wealthy individuals, the report said.
The government is proposing the biggest-ever budget deficit next year, calling for the shortfall to widen 13 percent to NT$257.4 billion (US$7.6 billion).
A tax on interest income may become applicable after the government changed accounting rules to treat repurchase transactions as a form of financing, Ling said.
In repurchase agreements, a bondholder such as an insurer sells securities to an investor such as a mutual fund for a set period, often for one day. At maturity, the securities are returned to the seller and the cash to the buyer.
Seminar to discuss EPZs
The Economic Processing Zone Administration under the Ministry of Economic Affairs will host a seminar in Kaohsiung today to introduce the investment climate in various newly built economic processing zones (EPZs), such as the Pingtung and Touliu EPZs, a spokesman for the administration said yesterday.
The administration will invite potential investors and companies from related industries to the seminar, the spokesman said.
Businesses approved to set up plants in those EPZs will enjoy low rent and investment incentives provided by the government, including a free-trade port area to be set up by the administration to help them sell to the world, he added.
NT dollar strengthens
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday traded higher against its US counterpart, up NT$0.001 to close at NT$33.790 on the Taipei Foreign Exchange. Turnover was US$898 million.
The NT dollar pared gains on trader speculation the central bank sold its currency to prevent exporters' month-end demand from extending its gains, which threaten to slow exports.
"There's speculation that the central bank sold the NT dollar," said Jerry Ho, a foreign exchange trader at International Bank of Taipei (台北商銀). "It's probably anticipation of rising NT dollar demand from exporters toward the end of the month" that prompted the central bank to sell to prevent the currency from "rising too fast."
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
RSS