Swazi King Mswati III yesterday encouraged Taiwanese enterprises to invest in his country, which he said has an array of opportunities for profitable investments.
“We are aware that our Taiwanese friends have gone a long way toward attaining first world status through innovation, creative thinking and action. It is against this background that we invite your businesses to come and invest ... and share experiences with the Swazi business community,” he said.
Mswati III and a delegation of more than 50 Swazi government officials yesterday held a trade and business opportunity conference in Taipei, bringing together 125 representatives from various industries to discuss how to promote investment, trade and tourism between the two countries.
In his speech, Mswati III said that his government will continue to support the establishment of new companies, as well as all the operations and future plans for existing businesses.
“The Kingdom of Eswatini looks forward to interested Taiwanese people to consider joining with our private sector to partner in a number of ongoing capital projects, including the Royal Science and Technology Park, the Swaziland International Convention Center and Swazi City,” he said.
These are among many other projects aimed at anchoring Swaziland’s strength as an investment and tourism destination, said Mswati III.
Currently, Taiwan’s exports to Swaziland are about US$14.57 million, while Swaziland’s exports to Taiwan only amount to about US$220,000. Over 20 Taiwanese companies have investments in Swaziland, with aggregate investment of more than US$90 million, mostly in the textile industry.
Despite the small level of trade and investment between Taiwan and Swaziland, Swaziland has great potential to attract Taiwanese businesses, Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Yang (楊進添) said.
“The government of Swaziland continues to improve its investment environment ... Other than that, the Taiwan-Swaziland Trade Advancement and Investment Protection Agreement can spare Taiwanese businesses investing in Swaziland from any political risks,” Yang said.
Taiwanese businesses also receive a maximum subsidy of NT$20 million (US$625,000) by investing in any of the country’s 23 diplomatic allies. Taiwan and Swaziland have maintained diplomatic ties for 42 years.
Chang Chu-liang (張咀亮), a representative of Taiwan’s leading solar cell maker Motech Industries Inc (茂迪), asked Swaziland officials whether the country was interested in developing solar energy.
Zizwe Vilane, director of Foreign Investment at the Swaziland Investment Promotion Agency, said that his country could help Taiwanese explore world markets, as many products exported from Swaziland enjoy preferential duty access to markets in MERCUSOR, the Latin American Common Market composed of Argentine, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa, the US and the EU.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
PARTNERSHIPS: TSMC said it has been working with multiple memorychip makers for more than two years to provide a full spectrum of solutions to address AI demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has been collaborating with multiple memorychip makers in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications for more than two years, refuting South Korean media report's about an unprecedented partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. As Samsung is competing with TSMC for a bigger foundry business, any cooperation between the two technology heavyweights would catch the eyes of investors and experts in the semiconductor industry. “We have been working with memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, on HBM solutions for more than two years, aiming to advance 3D integrated circuit
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).