Government-approved foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first seven months of this year rose by more than 200 percent from a year earlier, due to investment pledges by offshore wind power developers.
Approved FDI totaled US$9.69 billion over the period, up 201.84 percent from a year earlier, while the number of approved FDI applications fell 7.04 percent from a year earlier to 1,426, Investment Commission figures showed on Monday.
The growth in approved FDI largely resulted from the government’s push for green energy development, with three wind power investment applications accounting for about 43 percent of the total FDI in the first seven months, the commission said.
Photo courtesy of Formosa II Wind Power Co
During the period, the commission issued approved an application by Denmark’s Orsted Wind Power TW Holding A/S to invest NT$93.66 billion (US$3.09 billion) in offshore wind projects in Taiwan.
It also approved applications from Netherlands-based NP Hai Long Holdings BV and Denmark-based CI II Changfang K/S to invest NT$20.04 billion and NT$10.56 billion respectively in local offshore wind development.
Companies from countries covered by the government’s New Southbound Policy gained the commission’s approval to invest a combined US$1.52 billion, up 327.54 percent from a year earlier.
The commission said the pledged investment largely came from Australia, Singapore and Thailand.
The policy aims to enhance trade and exchanges with 16 countries in Southeast and South Asia, as well as Australia and New Zealand, to reduce Taiwan’s dependence on China.
Meanwhile, approved investments by China-based companies totaled US$17.698 million in the first seven months, down 36.52 percent from a year earlier, the commission said.
The value of Taiwan’s approved foreign-bound investments in the first seven months fell 33.89 percent from a year earlier to US$5.02 billion.
The commission approved US$2.25 billion of investment bound for policy countries, down 55.71 percent from a year earlier, with Singapore, Australia and Vietnam the major destinations.
Approved China-bound investments rose 0.01 percent from a year earlier to US$2.11 billion, the commission said.
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) expects its addressable market to grow by a low single-digit percentage this year, lower than the overall foundry industry’s 15 percent expansion and the global semiconductor industry’s 10 percent growth, the contract chipmaker said yesterday after reporting the worst profit in four-and-a-half years in the fourth quarter of last year. Growth would be fueled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers, a moderate recovery in consumer electronics and an increase in semiconductor content, UMC said. “UMC’s goal is to outgrow our addressable market while maintaining our structural profitability,” UMC copresident Jason Wang (王石) told an online earnings
The US Federal Reserve is expected to announce a pause in rate cuts on Wednesday, as policymakers look to continue tackling inflation under close and vocal scrutiny from US President Donald Trump. The Fed cut its key lending rate by a full percentage point in the final four months of last year and indicated it would move more cautiously going forward amid an uptick in inflation away from its long-term target of 2 percent. “I think they will do nothing, and I think they should do nothing,” Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis former president Jim Bullard said. “I think the
The TAIEX ended the Year of the Dragon yesterday up about 30 percent, led by contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電). The benchmark index closed up 225.40 points, or 0.97 percent, at 23,525.41 on the last trading session of the Year of the Dragon before the Lunar New Year holiday ushers in the Year of the Snake. During the Year of the Dragon, the TAIEX rose 5,429.34 points, the highest ever, while the 30 percent increase in the year was the second-highest behind only a 30.84 percent gain in the Year of the Rat from Jan. 25, 2020, to Feb.
Cryptocurrencies gave a lukewarm reception to US President Donald Trump’s first policy moves on digital assets, notching small gains after he commissioned a report on regulation and a crypto reserve. Bitcoin has been broadly steady since Trump took office on Monday and was trading at about US$105,000 yesterday as some of the euphoria around a hoped-for revolution in cryptocurrency regulation ebbed. Smaller cryptocurrency ether has likewise had a fairly steady week, although was up 5 percent in the Asia day to US$3,420. Bitcoin had been one of the most spectacular “Trump trades” in financial markets, gaining 50 percent to break above US$100,000 and
RSS