Textile maker Far Eastern New Century Corp (遠東新世紀) yesterday said its new garment plant in Vietnam might start operations in the first half of this year, boosting production by 1 million dozen garments per year.
“Next year, the capacity [of the new plant] is likely to reach 2 million dozen if we are able to hire enough workers,” a company official said by telephone.
The company, a subsidiary of Far Eastern Group (遠東集團), has an annual production capacity of 2.3 million dozen garments at its Vietnam plant.
The ongoing capacity expansion plans are parts of the company’s investment project in Vietnam, which has a budget of US$760 million to develop a supply chain for fabrics and garments over three years.
The Taipei-based company provides a wide range of petrochemical and textile products, such as polyester-related materials, knitted fabric and apparels.
The official, who declined to be named, said that another plant in Vietnam, which would produce knitted fabrics, is set to begin production in the second quarter of this year.
The new plant is expected to manufacture 6,000 tonnes of knitted fabrics this year, the company said.
As for upstream products, the company said that several new factories for making polyester garments are set to start production next year, considering higher construction costs.
The company gave a positive business outlook for this year, saying that it is likely to take advantage of global price increases in ethylene glycol, which would help increase prices of polyester fibers.
“The price of ethylene glycol is expected to hover at relatively high levels in the near term, as supply shortage problems in China are not yet completely resolved,” the official said.
The company is also in talks with several global brands for its eco-friendly products, and is expecting higher revenue contributions from recycled fiber and textiles for this year.
For the whole of last year, the company’s consolidated revenue slid 0.92 percent year-on-year to NT$215.87 billion (US$7.07 billion), primarily due to weak sentiment in garment markets around the world.
The polyester and textiles businesses amounted for more than 50 percent of the company’s total sales, company data showed.
The firm has yet to release its audited earnings results for last year.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”