Hi-Life to join Sunda Post
Hi-Life International Co (萊爾富), the nation's third-largest convenience store chain, yesterday announced an alliance with the private postal firm Sunda Post (上大郵通) to offer 24-hour mail collection services. With no more than 100 units, the mail would only be charged NT$3 each when each unit weighs under 100g, said Hi-Life, which offers such services in its 1,300 outlets nationwide.
The new service would greatly benefit restaurants, clothing stores and hair salons for mailing a large amount of coupons, or insurance and direct selling firms when mailing catalogues and flysheets, it added.
Before the service is available, Sunda Post would have to pick up mail at its customers' places for delivery as only the state-run Taiwan Post Co (臺灣郵政) has mailboxes set up on the streets.
Minicar recall excludes orders
Those who had placed orders for Smart ForTwo minicars need not to worry, as the latest recall did not affect them, the Taiwan branch of German-US automaker DaimlerChrysler said yesterday.
"Pre-order of the cars started in April and we haven't yet brought them to Taiwan's market, except for one test drive unit," a company's public relation source said.
The orders, currently amount to around 20 units, will be delivered only starting from next month, so buyers could be rest assured their cars are not affected by the problem, she said.
Worldwide, DaimlerChrysler will recall 1,650 Smart ForTwo minicars to check for steering problems.
Ministry gives go-ahead
Minister of Economic Affairs Steve Chen (陳瑞隆) yesterday confirmed that the ministry will give the go-ahead to Chinese investment projects from four chip testers and packagers in a regular review this week -- Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc (ASE, 日月光半導體), Siliconware Precision Industries Co (SPIL, 矽品精密), Greatek Electronics Inc (超豐) and Walton Advanced Engineering Inc (華東科技).
Chen said government official across the board found their investments would not bring a negative impact on local industry. Besides, those companies promised to invest more in their operation at home, he said.
CEPD approves power plants
The Council for Economic Planning and Development has approved a Ministry of Economic Affairs proposal to build offshore wind power plants, a spokesman said yesterday.
Taiwan theoretically has about 9 million kilowatts of potential wind power in costal areas, but only 1.2 million kilowatts of offshore wind power are exploitable after various restrictions are excluded, the spokesman said.
In order to ensure steady development, the government decided to implement the project in several phases, with the maximum wind power projected for the first phase set at 300,000kw.
IT firms to tour Vietnam
A delegation of Taiwanese computer firms is scheduled to make a five-day visit to Vietnam from July 1 to July 5 to seek new trade opportunities.
According to the Taipei Computer Association (TCA, 台北市電腦公會), the delegation will be headed by TCA board member Wang Chao-chun (王超群), chairman of Taipei-based LEO Systems Inc (國眾). Members of the group include senior executives of more than 10 companies in the information technology sector such as Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), Tatung Co (大同) and Syscom Computer Engineering Co (凌群電腦).
During the delegation's stay in Ho Chih Minh City, it will attend a trade fair and visit IT-related associations and companies.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
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