Factories of more than 100 Taiwanese manufacturers in Hai Phong, Vietnam, were damaged during Typhoon Yagi, which swept through the northern part of the country last weekend, the head of the local Taiwanese business group said on Thursday.
Almost all 150 members of the Hai Phong branch of the Council of Taiwanese Chambers of Commerce in Vietnam reported that the rooftops or gates of their factories were blown off during the typhoon, which made landfall on Saturday last week, said Hai Phong branch head Wang Kun-sheng (王坤生) said.
Fortunately, no injuries or deaths were reported by Taiwanese businesses, Wang added.
Photo: Hau Dinh, AP
Typhoon-linked fatalities in Vietnam rose to 199, and the country is still coping with the aftermath of floods and landslides, an Agence France-Presse report said on Thursday.
In Hai Phong, power was cut for 48 hours as the city was at the center of the typhoon, Wang said, adding that the suburbs still had no power, water supply, phone lines or Internet.
Wang said he had to drive one hour to Hai Phong just to make a phone call.
“It is the first time I feel I’m in a disaster zone,” he said.
In Do Son, southeast of Hai Phong, where many Taiwanese manufacturers have set up operations in an industrial park, power has returned, but a shoe company executive surnamed Kao said production has not resumed, because water leaks through the damaged roof whenever it rains.
Kao estimated his losses in terms of hardware at about US$300,000.
Wang’s factory outside the industrial park is still waiting for power to return, like most of the residential area in Do Son. Few shops were open, and multiple fallen trees, damaged traffic lights and blown-off shop signs were seen along main roads on Thursday.
Wang said the damages to his factory and equipment were about US$200,000, and that there is a shortage of workers and construction material, because everyone is still trying to rebuild.
Taiwanese businesses have reported the damage and issues they face to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Vietnam, Wang said, adding that he would seek a tax deduction for typhoon-caused damage.
However, Taiwanese businesses are not looking for subsidies from the Vietnamese government, as local residents also faced heavy losses and damage, Wang added.
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