Describing Taiwan’s economy as “too dependent” on the technology sector, Pegatron Corp (和碩) chairman Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢) yesterday called for the nation to transition to a more diversified economy to keep thriving in the post-COVID-19 world.
“The Taiwanese economy is lopsided,” Tung said at an industry forum in Taipei. “We always rely on the tech sector. It is like a forest with only one kind of tree. There is not enough diversity.”
Tung said the overreliance on industrial exports is “a hidden problem,” and urged the government to assist the service sector in becoming more globalized and competitive.
Photo: CNA
Using Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as an example, Tung said that past government support played a pivotal role in the success today of Taiwanese tech companies.
While TSMC is undoubtedly “the pride of Taiwan,” Tung said the highly capital-intensive and technologically advanced chipmaking business could not have thrived in Taiwan without government support.
“We are feasting off the fruits of policy decisions made 40 years ago. What are we going to be eating 40 years from now?” he asked.
While the service sector comprises 60 percent of the Taiwanese economy and industry only 30 percent, the domestic service sector is not internationally competitive, he said.
“A country does not need to have a lot of land and a large population to thrive economically, what is more important is finding a place in the global economy to put talent and intelligence to good use,” he said.
Many China-based Taiwanese firms are moving back home amid an escalating US-China trade dispute, but Tung said it would do no good to move Pegatron’s factories back to Taiwan because of the nation’s limited labor force.
“If somebody wanted Pegatron to move our factories back to Taiwan from Shanghai and Suzhou, I would have to say sorry... We need to find 200,000 workers. That’s not possible in Taiwan,” he said.
Instead, Tung suggested “a division of labor” where jobs that require more creativity and generate more value stay in Taiwan while other jobs are exported.
VALUABLE STOCK: The company closed at NT$1,005 a share, on demand for AI and HPC chips, and is expected to issue a positive report during its earnings conference Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) shares rose 2.66 percent to close at a record high of NT$1,005 yesterday. as investors expect the company to continue benefiting from strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) chips. TSMC is the 19th member of the local bourse’s NT$1,000 stock club, which includes smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) and electric transformer manufacturer Fortune Electric Co (華城電機). Yesterday’s rally swelled TSMC’s market capitalization to NT$26.06 trillion (US$802.3 billion) and contributed about 211 points to the TAIEX, which closed up 350.1 points, or 1.51 percent, to 23,522.53, another record high, Taiwan Stock
SUPPORT: Large groups declined to invest in the country due to a lack of investment support, a Vietnamese government document indicated Vietnam has missed out on multibillion-dollar investments by multinationals including Intel Corp and LG Chem Ltd because it lacks sufficient investment incentives, the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment said in a document reviewed by Reuters. US chipmaker Intel had proposed to invest US$3.3 billion in a project in Vietnam and asked the country for “cash support” of 15 percent, but later decided to move the project to Poland, the ministry said in the document dated on June 29. South Korea’s LG Chem also skipped Vietnam to invest in a battery project in Indonesia, after having asked the Vietnamese government to cover
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) unloaded shares worth nearly US$169 million last month, the most he has netted in a single month, as insatiable demand for the chips used to power artificial intelligence (AI) drove the stock to fresh peaks. The sale of 1.3 million shares, his first of the year, came during a month when Nvidia’s market value rose above US$3 trillion for the first time. That briefly made it the world’s most valuable company and pushed Huang, 61, into the rarefied group of ultra-rich with fortunes above US$100 billion. The series of transactions were executed under a 10b5-1 trading
Google on Monday said it is planning to invest in New Green Power Co (NGP, 永鑫能源), a solar energy developer owned by BlackRock Inc, to build 1 gigawatt of solar capacity in Taiwan to supply clean energy for its local data center and offices. “Our investment in NGP, subject to regulatory approval, will serve as development capital toward its 1 GW pipeline of new solar projects, catalyzing critical equity and debt financing for those projects,” Google’s Data Center Energy global head Amanda Peterson Corio wrote on a company blog. It did not disclose financial details. “We expect to procure up to 300 megawatts