Despite the ripple effect on Taiwanese businesses, local academics and industry leaders have applauded China's belt-tightening measures announced earlier this year.
They pointed out, however, the risks facing China and warned Taiwanese companies to watch out for the impact of a potential increase in interest rates in the near future, driven by China's soaring consumer price index (CPI).
"I greatly applaud China's preventive steps to rein in its runway economy before an economic bubble materializes," said Chen Lee-in (
The step to suspend the establishment of new development zones could help farmers to keep lands for farming and thus have more stable economies, Chen said.
This is widely expected to moderate the rural problems that have been a headache to Beijing for decades, she added.
Tsai Horng-ming (
The measures are expected to cause industrial restructuring by eliminating ill and outmoded businesses, which are beneficial to competitive Taiwanese companies in the long run, he said.
In late April Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (
China should carefully segment and identify overproducing industries when implementing belt-tightening measures, Chen said.
For example, parts of the aluminum industry still enjoy a gross margin as high as 9 percent, which indicates no overproduction and thus should not be added to the curb list, she added.
Echoing Chen, Tsai said that as unemployment could amount to 228 million people, Beijing should keep a fine balance in undertaking such artificial controls of the economy.
"If China's annual growth rate falls below 8 percent or 9 percent, then unemployment and bad loans problems could deteriorate and cause social instability," he added.
An increasingly likely rise in interest rates in China could more bad news for China-based Taiwanese companies, experts said.
Zhou Xiaochuan (
China's CPI growth rate last month reached 4.4 percent from a year ago, according to the figures released by National Bureau of Statistics of China earlier this month.
"Taiwanese companies should watch out for their receivables from their Chinese counterparts if the interest rate increases," Tsai warned.
Considering the administrative curbs and worsening power shortages in China -- which may last for the next year or two -- Taiwanese companies could put off their plans to set up plants in China in the near future, said Luo Huai-jia (
INVESTMENT: Jun Seki, chief strategy officer for Hon Hai’s EV arm, and his team are currently in talks in France with Renault, Nissan’s 36 percent shareholder Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the iPhone maker known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) internationally, is in talks with Nissan Motor Co’s biggest shareholder Renault SA about its willingness to sell its shares in the Japanese automaker, the Central News Agency (CNA) said, citing people it did not identify. Nissan and fellow Japanese automaker, Honda Motor Co, are exploring a merger that would create a rival to Toyota Motor Corp in Japan and better position the combined company to face competitive challenges around the world, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. However, one potential spanner in the works is
SEMICONDUCTORS: Samsung and Texas Instruments would receive US$4.75 billion and US$1.6 billion respectively to build one chip factory in Utah and two in Texas Samsung Electronics Co and Texas Instruments Inc completed final agreements to get billions of US dollars of government support for new semiconductor plants in the US, cementing a major piece of US President Joe Biden administration’s CHIPS and Science Act initiative. Under binding agreements unveiled Friday, Samsung would get as much as US$4.75 billion in funding, while Texas Instruments stands to receive US$1.6 billion — money that would help them build facilities in Texas and Utah. The final deals mean the chipmakers can begin collecting the funding when their projects hit certain benchmarks. Though the terms of Texas Instruments’ final agreement is
Call it an antidote to fast fashion: Japanese jeans hand-dyed with natural indigo and weaved on a clackety vintage loom, then sold at a premium to global denim connoisseurs. Unlike their mass-produced cousins, the tough garments crafted at the small Momotaro Jeans factory in southwest Japan are designed to be worn for decades, and come with a lifetime repair warranty. On site, Yoshiharu Okamoto gently dips cotton strings into a tub of deep blue liquid, which stains his hands and nails as he repeats the process. The cotton is imported from Zimbabwe, but the natural indigo they use is harvested in Japan —
Japan ramped up its warnings against currency speculation on Friday after the yen slid to a five-month low following a hint from the central bank chief that he might wait longer than expected before raising interest rates. “The government’s deeply concerned about recent currency moves, including those driven by speculators,” Japanese Minister of Finance Katsunobu Kato said. “We will take appropriate action if there are excessive moves in the currency market.” The yen regained some ground against the dollar after Kato’s remarks, strengthening to as much as ¥156.89 after earlier weakening to ¥157.93. The Japanese currency strengthened a little further after currency