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 (
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that its investment plan in Arizona is going according to schedule, following a local media report claiming that the company is planning to break ground on its third wafer fab in the US in June. In a statement, TSMC said it does not comment on market speculation, but that its investments in Arizona are proceeding well. TSMC is investing more than US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs. The first one has started production using the 4-nanometer (nm) process, while the second one would start mass production using the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
When an apartment comes up for rent in Germany’s big cities, hundreds of prospective tenants often queue down the street to view it, but the acute shortage of affordable housing is getting scant attention ahead of today’s snap general election. “Housing is one of the main problems for people, but nobody talks about it, nobody takes it seriously,” said Andreas Ibel, president of Build Europe, an association representing housing developers. Migration and the sluggish economy top the list of voters’ concerns, but analysts say housing policy fails to break through as returns on investment take time to register, making the
CHIP BOOM: Revenue for the semiconductor industry is set to reach US$1 trillion by 2032, opening up opportunities for the chip pacakging and testing company, it said ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services, yesterday launched a new advanced manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, aiming to meet growing demand for emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The US$300 million facility is a critical step in expanding ASE’s global footprint, offering an alternative for customers from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China to assemble and test chips outside of Taiwan amid efforts to diversify supply chains. The plant, the company’s fifth in Malaysia, is part of a strategic expansion plan that would more than triple