Local commercial and luxury-home properties could enjoy a big upside should further political liberalization occur and the local economy get a boost from closer trade ties with China, a real-estate consultancy firm said yesterday.
“It is likely that prices for office space in Taipei will soon go up as the vacancy rate tightens,” Billy Yen (顏炳立), general manager of real-estate consultancy DTZ (戴德梁行), told a seminar.
Luxury homes could further benefit as unit prices, which average NT$1.6 million (US$52,400) per ping (3.3m²) in the upscale Xinyi District have underperformed in comparison with luxury residential properties in major Asian cities such as Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore, he said.
DTZ is the organizer of an auction tomorrow to collateralize the Agora Garden (亞太會館) hotel at a floor price of NT$14.9 billion.
Yen was pessimistic about the residential property market, except for those in Taipei, which could become defensive amid any potential property slump.
He said residential prices outside Taipei had gone up to an unreasonable level.
He rejected the likelihood that the local property market was experiencing a bubble and could collapse when the bubble bursts. He said foreign investors still think that the local property market’s growth momentum remains strong and prices are still low.
A report by Collier International, however, said office building prices had gone up so much that it had scared away potential buyers or office tenants, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported yesterday.
The report forecast the vacancy rate for the office building market could climb back up to exceed 10 percent this year from last year’s 9.47 percent, the paper said.
Meanwhile, statistics released by the central bank yesterday showed that the property market may be showing signs of weakening. Loans for construction have dropped for a second straight month to NT$1.018 trillion last month, tallies showed.
The NT$8.65 billion, or 0.85 percent, decline in such loans — which mostly include loans to construction companies for housing projects and land development — in April from the previous month has accelerated from a monthly decline of NT$2.07 billion, or 0.21 percent, in March, data showed.
The central bank’s latest data also indicated weakening consumer loans in other categories. Car loans presented a continual decline since July 2006 and fell to NT$81.21 billion last month, a reduction of NT$1.8 billion, or 2.18 percent, from the previous month.
Meanwhile, revolving credit for credit cards totaled NT$251.9 billion last month, which posed a monthly decline since the peak of NT$465.6 billion in December 2005, tallies showed.
Semiconductor shares in China surged yesterday after Reuters reported the US had ordered chipmaking giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to halt shipments of advanced chips to Chinese customers, which investors believe could accelerate Beijing’s self-reliance efforts. TSMC yesterday started to suspend shipments of certain sophisticated chips to some Chinese clients after receiving a letter from the US Department of Commerce imposing export restrictions on those products, Reuters reported on Sunday, citing an unnamed source. The US imposed export restrictions on TSMC’s 7-nanometer or more advanced designs, Reuters reported. Investors figured that would encourage authorities to support China’s industry and bought shares
FLEXIBLE: Taiwan can develop its own ground station equipment, and has highly competitive manufacturers and suppliers with diversified production, the MOEA said The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday disputed reports that suppliers to US-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) had been asked to move production out of Taiwan. Reuters had reported on Tuesday last week that Elon Musk-owned SpaceX had asked their manufacturers to produce outside of Taiwan given geopolitical risks and that at least one Taiwanese supplier had been pushed to relocate production to Vietnam. SpaceX’s requests place a renewed focus on the contentious relationship Musk has had with Taiwan, especially after he said last year that Taiwan is an “integral part” of China, sparking sharp criticism from Taiwanese authorities. The ministry said
CHANGING JAPAN: Nvidia-powered AI services over cellular networks ‘will result in an artificial intelligence grid that runs across Japan,’ Nvidia’s Jensen Huang said Softbank Group Corp would be the first to build a supercomputer with chips using Nvidia Corp’s new Blackwell design, a demonstration of the Japanese company’s ambitions to catch up on artificial intelligence (AI). The group’s telecom unit, Softbank Corp, plans to build Japan’s most powerful AI supercomputer to support local services, it said. That computer would be based on Nvidia’s DGX B200 product, which combines computer processors with so-called AI accelerator chips. A follow-up effort will feature Grace Blackwell, a more advanced version, the company said. The announcement indicates that Softbank Group, which until early 2019 owned 4.9 percent of Nvidia, has secured a
CARBON REDUCTION: ‘As a global leader in semiconductor manufacturing, we recognize our mission in environmental protection,’ TSMC executive Y.P. Chyn said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, yesterday launched its first zero-waste center in Taichung to repurpose major manufacturing waste, which translates into savings of NT$1.5 billion (US$46 million) in environmental costs a year. The environmental cost savings include a carbon reduction benefit of 40,000 tonnes, equivalent to the carbon offset of over 110 Daan Forest Parks, the chipmaker said. The Taichung Zero Waste Manufacturing Center is part of the chipmaker’s greater efforts to reach its net zero emissions goal in 2050, aligning with the UN’s 12th Sustainable Development Goal. The center could reduce TSMC’s outsourced waste processing
RSS