Star Cruises Ltd (麗星郵輪), Asia’s biggest cruise operator, surged by a record 65 percent in Hong Kong trading after China said it would allow cruise tours to Taiwan to stop in the city.
Star Cruises rose as much as HK$0.53 to HK$1.35, the most since being listed in Hong Kong in 2000, and traded at HK$1.18 as of 2:35pm.
That boosted the stock’s gains for this year to 97 percent, compared with a 10 percent climb for the benchmark Hang Seng Index.
After his meeting with Chinese authorities, Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang (曾蔭權) said on Saturday in a press briefing at the Boao forum in Hainan that China would allow cruise tours from mainland ports to stop at Hong Kong en route to Taiwan. Star Cruises said in November it plans to begin a service between Taiwan and China by the end of the first quarter of this year.
ON THE UP
The Singapore-traded shares of Star Cruises rose 26 percent, the most in two years.
The cruise operator isn’t aware of the reasons for the increases in price and trading volume, it said in statements to the Hong Kong and Singapore stock exchanges yesterday. Calls to the Hong Kong-based office of Star Cruises weren’t immediately returned.
RESTRICTIONS RELAXED
Hong Kong will relax travel restrictions for Taiwanese visitors entering the city, the city’s government said in a statement on April 15. Taiwanese residents with a valid travel permit for China will be allowed to stay in Hong Kong for seven days.
Taiwan, Hong Kong, Guangdong and Fujian should form a regional economic alliance to improve their competitiveness, Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) said last week after meeting in Hong Kong with Stephen Lam (林瑞麟), the city’s secretary for constitutional and mainland affairs.
Taiwan plans to start talks with China on cross-strait economic cooperation at the end of this year, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Chairman Chao Chien-min (趙建民) said last week.
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
A TAIWAN DEAL: TSMC is in early talks to fully operate Intel’s US semiconductor factories in a deal first raised by Trump officials, but Intel’s interest is uncertain Broadcom Inc has had informal talks with its advisers about making a bid for Intel Corp’s chip-design and marketing business, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Nothing has been submitted to Intel and Broadcom could decide not to pursue a deal, according to the Journal. Bloomberg News earlier reported that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is in early talks for a controlling stake in Intel’s factories at the request of officials at US President Donald Trump’s administration, as the president looks to boost US manufacturing and maintain the country’s leadership in critical technologies. Trump officials raised 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
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
RSS