Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (鴻海精密), a key supplier to Apple Inc, has asked its Taiwanese employees who work at its plant in Wuhan, China, but are back in Taiwan for the Lunar New Year holiday to stay home, given the new coronavirus outbreak in the city.
Hon Hai, known internationally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), yesterday said that no health problems had been found so far in its Wuhan-based employees who had returned to Taiwan for the holiday, but it had asked them not to attend the annual year-end party in Taipei yesterday, and to stay home during the holiday in case of any contagion.
“We also urge any colleague who had been to Wuhan over the past two weeks to report to the company and rest at home for safety’s sake,” company founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) said in his speech at the party.
Photo: CNA
“2020 is full of challenges,” Gou said. “The outbreak of coronavirus is one of them.”
“The speed of contagion will be no less than Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome,” he said, referring to the 2002-2003 epidemic that started in China and killed nearly 800 people globally.
“I advise everyone not to go to the mainland for this coming new year holiday,” he added.
The company stepped up health checks at the party at the Nangang Exhibition Hall, including providing 35,000 facemasks and checking everyone’s temperature as they entered the venue.
Since the outbreak, Foxconn workers in Wuhan have been wearing facemasks and getting their temperature checked, the company said.
Management has to decide whether those Taiwanese who work in Wuhan need to return there to work after the holiday, Gou said.
Management needs to come up with solutions such as video conference systems for employees if they are to work remotely from Taiwan, Gou said.
Hon Hai is expected to get through this situation, as it had been trained and survived SARS, he added.
Additional reporting by Bloomberg
When an apartment comes up for rent in Germany’s big cities, hundreds of prospective tenants often queue down the street to view it, but the acute shortage of affordable housing is getting scant attention ahead of today’s snap general election. “Housing is one of the main problems for people, but nobody talks about it, nobody takes it seriously,” said Andreas Ibel, president of Build Europe, an association representing housing developers. Migration and the sluggish economy top the list of voters’ concerns, but analysts say housing policy fails to break through as returns on investment take time to register, making 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
Taiwanese artificial intelligence (AI) server makers are expected to make major investments in Texas in May after US President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office and amid his rising tariff threats, Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association (TEEMA, 台灣電子電機公會) chairman Richard Lee (李詩欽) said yesterday. The association led a delegation of seven AI server manufacturers to Washington, as well as the US states of California, Texas and New Mexico, to discuss land and tax issues, as Taiwanese firms speed up their production plans in the US with many of them seeing Texas as their top option for investment, Lee said. The
RSS