Local textile manufacturers expect to sign US$85 million of new orders at the annual Taipei Innovative Textile Show from Oct. 16 to 18, as demand grows for higher-priced functional textiles used mostly in sports and outdoor apparel, organizers said yesterday.
That would represent about 21 percent annual growth from US$70 million in orders last year, an initial estimate by the Taiwan Textile Federation (TTF) showed.
Robust growth was already reflected in the 2 percent annual growth in textile exports to US$5.89 billion from January to July this year, and the full-year increase could be larger, as the traditional peak season falls in the second half, the federation said.
Last year, textile exports grew by an anemic 0.8 percent to US$10 billion, it said.
SMART FABRIC
“Taiwanese textile manufacturers are becoming the top choice for global [apparel and shoe] brands and retailers whenever they want to experiment with new textiles,” TTF president Justin Huang (黃偉基) told reporters on the sidelines of a news conference in Taipei. “Such new products usually carry higher price tags.”
Ruentex Industries Ltd (潤泰全球) has set an example in the smart medical textile market, Huang said.
The company earlier this year landed an order to supply 60 million units of smart medical clothes equipped with sensors that measure blood pressure and heartbeat, the federation said.
Smart medical apparel and army clothing are the two biggest markets for new functional textiles, Huang said.
Sports apparel, outdoor wear and sports shoes have been the main sources of revenue for local textile makers.
Together, Taiwanese textile manufacturers supply 40 percent of materials used in Nike Inc-branded shoes, and 20 percent of materials for Adidas AG shoes, TTF data showed.
TRADE WAR
Commenting on the consequences of the escalating US-China trade war, Huang said that local textile makers would benefit from the trade disputes in the long run as major global retailers seek to relocate their Chinese plants to Southeast Asian and African nations or India to circumvent new import tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump.
Trump last month imposed a 10 percent tariff on US$200 billion of Chinese goods that include textiles and clothing, and the tariffs could go up to 25 percent in January next year.
“Taiwanese textile suppliers might benefit from such supply-chain shifts. They will not face a higher tax burden, as they could ship their products to the US from their factories in Vietnam or in Taiwan,” Huang said.
This year’s show at Nangang Exhibition Hall in Taipei is to see a record number of participants, he said, adding that about 456 companies are to showcase new products during the show, up from 380 last year.
Formosa Plastics Group’s (台塑集團) textile arms Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp (台化) and Formosa Taffeta Co (福懋興業) are to return to the show to present new products, organizers said, adding that they were absent from the show last year.
Textile makers Far Eastern New Century Corp (遠東新世紀), Eclat Textile Co (儒鴻), Lealea Enterprise Co (力麗) and Tex-ray Industrial Co Ltd (南緯實業) would also join the show, they said.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
BRAVE NEW WORLD: Nvidia believes that AI would fuel a new industrial revolution and would ‘do whatever we can’ to guide US AI policy, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Tuesday said he is ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump and offer his help to the incoming administration. “I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that he has not been invited to visit Trump’s home base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yet. As head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Huang has an opportunity to help steer the administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy at a moment of rapid change.
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) quarterly sales topped estimates, reinforcing investor hopes that the torrid pace of artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending would extend into this year. The go-to chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported a 39 percent rise in December-quarter revenue to NT$868.5 billion (US$26.35 billion), based on calculations from monthly disclosures. That compared with an average estimate of NT$854.7 billion. The strong showing from Taiwan’s largest company bolsters expectations that big tech companies from Alphabet Inc to Microsoft Corp would continue to build and upgrade datacenters at a rapid clip to propel AI development. Growth accelerated for
RSS