ENERGY
Vote to affect a single plant
Only Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County can be considered for delayed decommissioning, Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Tseng Wen-sheng (曾文生) said yesterday. The plant is the only facility that can apply for a stay of decommissioning, as it has more than five years before its originally scheduled decommissioning, Tseng said, adding that the application deadline for the other two nuclear power plants has lapsed. Tseng’s comments came after voters passed a referendum that paves the way for the use of nuclear power beyond 2025. State-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is ready to carry out the stay of decommissioning for Ma-anshan, once a decision is made by the government, a company spokesperson told the Taipei Times yesterday, adding that the technical aspects of the process would not pose as a major concern. Ma-anshan has enough capacity on site to safely store spent nuclear fuel rods to sustain operations through 2025, they said. The facility is also equipped with an advanced boiling-water reactor that produces only 10 percent as much spent fuel rods as older technologies, the spokesperson said.
CEMENT
Taiwan Cement shares fall
Shares in Taiwan Cement Corp (台灣水泥) yesterday fell 5.23 percent to NT$33 as the company completed the issuance of US$400 million in convertible bonds, the largest by any Asian cement company and the biggest in the past year by any Taiwanese company. The bonds are listed on the Singapore Exchange. They are linked to the New Taiwan dollar and have a conversion price of NT$41, representing a 16 percent premium over the stock’s NT$35.35 closing price on Monday. Taiwan Cement has raised about US$950 million, including US$549 million in global depositary receipts that the company issued in July.
ELECTRONICS
Containerized center set up
Delta Electronics Inc (台達電), yesterday announced that it shipped a containerized data center from the company’s manufacturing base in Wujiang, China, and installed it for the Singapore-based Campana Group in just 50 days. The energy-efficient, 200 kilowatt data center was set up in Yangon, Myanmar, as part of the Singapore-Myanmar International Submarine Cable Project, which targets Southeast Asia’s growing demand for online activities and digital life. Delta said that its containerized solution is highly scalable and can be deployed rapidly, as opposed to the two-year construction time required for traditional data centers. Over the past few years, containerized solutions have become the best choice for data centers used in edge computing and disaster recovery, Delta said.
DIGITAL PAYMENT
Jkos toasts politician’s loss
Jkos Network Co Ltd (街口網絡) founder and chief operating officer Kevin Hu (胡亦嘉) yesterday denied all wrongdoing over a spat with former Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City councilor Wang Wei-chung (王威中), who in March had cast doubt over the payment app’s security. Jkos celebrated Wang’s defeat in Saturday’s nine-in-one elections by offering its users a 20 percent cash rebate limited to NT$100 on a first-time purchase yesterday. Regarding Wang’s threat to take legal action against alleged election manipulation, Hu said that he did nothing wrong and that the cash rebate took place after the ballots were counted. Hu promised that Jkos would continue to celebrate any defeats Wang has in the future.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$10.26 billion to finance the construction of its second fab in Kumamoto, Japan, and a second fab in Arizona, using advanced process technologies. The Department of Investment Review approved TSMC’s investment applications on the basis that Taiwan remains a major technology and manufacturing hub for the chipmaker, which makes its most advanced chips at home, the company operates its research-and-development center here and the majority of its capacity remains in Taiwan. The latest capital injections — US$5.26 billion for its Japanese venture Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing
TOP PERFORMER: The computer and optical products sector’s annual increase in output of 31.84 percent was the largest among Taiwan’s six major industries The industrial production index last month increased 16.06 percent year-on-year, rising for a third consecutive month as local manufacturing continued to boom, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Industrial production measures the change in the value of output produced by the local manufacturing, mining and utilities sectors. Last month’s growth, the largest annual expansion in 34 months, came as increases in manufacturing output, water supply, and electricity and gas production more than offset a retreat in mining output, the ministry said in a report. Manufacturing output, which accounted for 95.39 percent of the industrial production index, also rose for a third consecutive
DIVERSIFYING: Following customers’ demand to improve supply chain resilience, ASE is looking for sites in the US, Japan and Mexico, a company executive said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it plans to launch a new high-end chip testing fab in the US next month to better serve its key customers based in North America, particularly California-based artificial intelligence (AI) customers. The new US testing facility would be operated by the firm’s subsidiary ISE Labs Inc, it said. ASE’s major customers, and high-ranking US officials and representatives from American Institute in Taiwan are to attend the fab’s opening ceremony on July 12, it said. ISE Labs last year acquired a 5,942m2 facility in San
Two global credit ratings firms lowered their forecasts for China’s property market, as an accelerating slump in home prices hampers the country’s efforts to rescue the sector. S&P Global Ratings now expects residential sales to drop 15 percent this year, more than the 5 percent decline it projected earlier. That would put sales below 10 trillion yuan (US$1.4 trillion), about half the peak in 2021, the ratings company said on Thursday. Fitch Ratings on Wednesday cut its annual sales estimate to a decrease of 15 to 20 percent, worse than an earlier estimate of a 5 to 10 percent drop. The ratings firms’