INVESTMENT
FDI hits record first quarter
The total value of approved investment projects by Taiwanese expatriates and foreign investors grew 105.43 percent year-on-year to US$2.25 billion in the first quarter, the highest January-to-March figures in 10 years, the Investment Commission said on Friday last week. Commission spokesperson Yang Shu-ling (楊淑玲) said the approved foreign direct investments (FDI) include Itochu Corp buying shares in Taipei Financial Center Corp (台北金融大樓) for US$665 million, German-based Allianz SE increasing its investment in Allianz Taiwan Life Insurance Co (安聯人壽) to US$600 million and wind farm investments.
TRADE
Firms to save with tariff deal
Nicaragua’s removal of tariffs on three types of industrial products from Taiwan — paper or paperboard labels of all kinds, rubber or plastic footwear, and metal furniture — went into effect yesterday, which could save Taiwanese businesses a grand total of US$57,218 per year, an estimate by the Customs Administration found. The expansion of benefits under a decade-old bilateral free-trade agreement was implemented in Taiwan and Nicaragua earlier this year, the Bureau of Foreign Trade said on Friday last week.
ELECTRONICS
P20 Pro lands in Taiwan
Huawei Technologies Co (華為) on Thursday last week launched the P20 Pro in Taiwan. It is the world’s first smartphone to have three cameras and is touted as a game changer in mobile photography. Xunwei Technologies Co (訊崴), Huawei’s exclusive distributor in Taiwan, said that the P20 Pro accumulated preorders totaling about 100 million yuan (US$15.88 million) just 10 seconds after its Web site went live in China.
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
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