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| Prime News | | ![]() | ![]() | Cabinet Raises Floor-Area Ratio for Strategic Renewal Projects
Taipei, Nov. 15, 2007 (CENS)--The Executive Yuan (the Cabinet) resolved yesterday (Nov. 14) to raise the incentive of floor-area ratio for strategic construction renewal projects, which, among other things, will greatly stimulate urban renewable projects, leading to renovation of urban landscape.
In tandem with the relaxation, the government will step up organization of an urban regeneration company for undertaking urban renewal projects.
Lee Yi-yang, minister of interior, predicted that the increase in floor-area ratio will boost the number of urban renewal projects by 200 in five years, entailing NT$1 trillion of private investment, on the basis of NT$5 billion each project, and creating NT$2 trillion of economic benefit.
The new incentive of floor-area ratio for some strategic construction renewable projects will be set at the original floor-area ratio plus 0.5 times of the legal floor-area ratio, up from the existing 0.3 times, while the incentive of floor-area ratio for other strategic projects will hit two times the legal floor-area ratio, up from the existing 1.5 times. The new regulation will be effective next year at the earliest.
Floor-area ratio for urban renewable projects for fourth-category old houses, for instance, is now set at 450%, 1.5 times of the legal floor-area ratio, which will be raised to 600% under the new regulation, meaning six pings (one ping equals 36 square feet) of house can be built on one ping of land, rather than existing 4.5 pings. As a result, scale of an 150-house urban renewable project can be expanded to 200 houses, greatly boosting incentive for occupants of old houses to accept offer of urban renewal projects from developers, according to an official of the Construction and Planning Agency of the Ministry of Interior (MOI).
In addition to urban renewal projects, other strategic construction renewal projects include: constructions within 400-meter radius of stations of high-speed rail, railway, and mass-rapid transit system; waterfront constructions or constructions neighboring harbors; and construction renewal projects necessitated by major national or municipal construction projects.
Meanwhile, to facilitate implementation of urban renewal projects, the government is accelerating establishment of an urban regeneration company, with projected capital of NT$5 billion, of which NT$2 billion or more will come from the National Development Fund. Government stake will be kept under 50%, so that the company can operate as a private company, according to Chang Chin-shen, vice chairman of the Council for Economic Planning and Development.
To avoid the suspicion of benefiting developers, developers, however, will be required to pay back up to 40% of their increased benefits to the government.
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| | ![]() | | | China Preparing Resumption of Gravel Exports to Taiwan
Taipei, Nov. 15, 2007 (CENS)--The Chinese government has started making preparation for resuming Chinese gravel export to Taiwan, a move expected to alleviate soaring domestic gravel prices caused in part by the ban imposed by the Chinese government on gravel export on March 1 this year.
The policy was announced at a press conference yesterday (Nov. 14), sponsored by the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, the Ministry of Commerce, and Ministry of Communications of China, when Chinese officials said that agreement for resuming gravel export to Taiwan was reached during a meeting with representatives of several Taiwanese associations visiting China, including Taiwan Gravel Import Association and Taiwan Region Engineering Contractors Association (TRECA).
Chinese officials, though, proposed direct shipping of gravel from China to Taiwan, rather than via a third-party harbor, so as to save on shipment time and cost.
Wang Wei, director of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao Affairs, the Ministry of Commerce, noted that "We sincerely hope to see early resumption of gravel export to Taiwan via mutual effort."
China banned gravel export entirely from March 1, depriving Taiwan of what had been the source of 25% of its annual gravel consumption of 75 million metric tons. As a result, gravel prices have soared 50% so far this year.
Liang Shu-he, director of foreign trade department of the Ministry of Commerce, noted that the ministry has embarked on preparing resumption of gravel export to Taiwan, including formulation of related regulations, to prevent transshipment of the exported gravel to a third country or area.
He pointed out that gravel export to Taiwan will be subject to the control of export permit and will be decreased gradually, urging Taiwanese construction firms to diversify their gravel supply sources.
Meanwhile, Li Jian-sheng, director of Taiwan Affairs Office, under the Ministry of Communication, urged adoption of direct gravel shipment to Taiwan, so as to cut costs and avoid transshipment, especially in view of the low added value of gravel.
Previously, Chinese gravel was shipped to Taiwan via Japan's Ishigaki-jima island, about 420 kilometers southwest of Naha on the Main Okinawa Island.
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| | ![]() | | | Four Taiwanese Cement Firms to Invest NT$50 B. in Mainland China
Taipei, Nov. 15, 2007 (CENS)--To exploit the very promising cement market in mainland China, domestic leading firms in this field, including Taiwan Cement Corp., Asia Cement Corp., Universal Cement Corp. and Goldsun Development and Construction Co., will invest more than NT$50 billion in that lucrative market in the three years to come.
Over the past two years, the domestic cement market has been shrinking at the pace of 5% annually, compared to an annualized 10% growth for the same industry in mainland China.
With the prospective investments, Taiwan's cement firms will see overall annual production capacity exceed 80 million metric tons, six-fold that of domestic capacity.
To retain its No.1 position with a 30% share in southern Chinese cement market, Taiwan Cement will invest US$1 billion to jack up annual production capacity to 50 million metric tons by 2010.
At present, Taiwan is speeding up construction of a second kiln in Yingde plant of Guangdong province, a second kiln in Quigang plant of Guangxi province, and a grinding plant in Fuzhou of Fujian province.
To minimize production costs, Taiwan will launch vertically integrated production in the mainland to include such peripheral facilities as piers and power generation by tapping expelled heat from production lines. In addition, the company will help affiliated firms in the fields of warehousing and transportation set up representative offices in the mainland.
With production sites located on the central Chinese market, Asia Cement will expand production capacity by launching an IPO (initial public offering) project to raise funds on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2008. In the next three years, the company will invest over US$300 million to expand cement production in Jiangxi, Hubei and Sichuan provinces. The company is targeting an overall annual production capacity of 28 million metric tons in the mainland by 2012.
Universal Cement will double production capacity to reach three million metric tons per year by 2010. In addition, it plans to additional build six plants in the mainland to increase production of cement by two million cubic meters in the next few years. In total, the company will increase investments in the mainland reach over US$100 million by 2010.
Goldsun plans to set up a second kiln in its plant in Fujian province. The company has selected Changsha of Hunan province as a second production site for the production of cement in the mainland. In total, the company will invest over NT$5 billion (US$154.8 million at US$1:NT$32.3) in the mainland in the two years to come.
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| | ![]() | | | Hon Hai Rating Raised to "twAA+" on Strong Performance
Taipei, Nov. 15, 2007 (CENS)--Taiwan Ratings Corp. (TRC) recently raised its corporate credit rating on Hon Hai Precision Industry to twAA+ from twAA. The outlook on the long-term rating is stable. At the same time, it also raised its issue rating on the company's senior unsecured debt to twAA+ from twAA.
The upgrade reflects Hon Hai's strengthened market position and robust earnings performance, which is supported by its strong component capability, leading production technology, and an unrivalled vertical integration production process. The strength of Hon Hai's business position should enable the company to maintain a modest financial risk profile over the medium term.
Hon Hai is t he world's largest provider of electronics manufacturing services. The company has built an entrenched market position over the years by expanding its vertically integrated production model and strengthening its component manufacturing capabilities. As a result, it has established a strong customer base with major global players in a wide range of electronics products, and this offsets the risk of customer concentration.
While competitors are trying to emulate Hon Hai's successful business model through merger and acquisition, they do not pose a significant threat over the near term. Hon Hai is likely to maintain its high growth momentum over the next few quarters, capitalizing on the continued trend towards outsourcing in the global high-tech industry.
Hon Hai continues to outperform its peers in terms of revenue and earnings. Its revenue has grown an annual average of 56% over the past three years, and was more than double that of its nearest competitor in 2006. In the first half of 2007, revenue grew 29% year-on-year to NT$711 billion (US$22.01 million at US$1:NT$32.3) while its return on capital remained strong at 22%. The company's EBITDA (earnings before interests, taxes, depreciation and amortization) margin stood at 7.3%, down slightly from 7.4% in the same period of 2006.
TRC said Hon Hai maintains a prudent financial policy with modest debt usage. The company's ratio of total debt to total capital was 25% as of June 30, 2007 and it had a net cash position due to its strengthening cash flow generation. Hon Hai should maintain its moderate leverage over the medium term, given expectations of sustainable free operating cash flow.
At the end of June 2007, Hon Hai had about NT$135 billion (US$4.17 billion) in cash and short-term investments, compared with total debt of about NT$111 billion (US$3.43 billion). The company also maintained unused, uncommitted credit facilities exceeding US$5 billion.
The stable outlook reflects TRC's view that Hon Hai's strong competitive position and consistently good operating performance will support the ratings over the medium term. The ratings also reflect TRC's expectation that Hon Hai will maintain its prudent financial policy and limit its ratio of net debt to capital at less than 25%. There is limited potential for a further upgrade over the near term, given the competitive dynamics in the electronics manufacturing services sector.
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| | ![]() | | | Infineon Licenses ASE with Advanced e-WLB Packaging Technology
Taipei, Nov. 15, 2007 (CENS)—German chipmaker Infineon Technology AG recently unveiled an embedded wafer-level ball gird (e-WLB) packaging technology and licensed it to Taiwanese chip assembler Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE) Inc.
ASE will begin to use the technology for volume production in the second half next year on Infineon's base-band chips and high-speed networking chips.
Industry watchers pointed out that wafer-level packaging technology has become a crucial packaging solution now in terms of making packaging cost efficient at a time when packaging has become increasingly complicate in proportion to increase in chip pins.
Nevertheless, mature wafer-level technologies still have their limitations in serving cost-efficiency purpose especially on chips that have ultra large number of pins to connect.
Infineon reported its technology can resolve the difficulty and can reduce 30% more packaging area than do traditional wafer-level lead-frame technology. The company said the new technology will first encase its chips for mobile phones like receiver chips, power-management chips, and base-band chips in order to cut down costs.
Last month alone, ASE, which is recognized as the world's No.1 chip packaging and testing house, had revenue exceeding NT$10 billion (US$303 million at US$1:NR$33). The company will focus efforts on competing for contracts from integrated device manufacturers (IDMs), with its factories in Taiwan providing high-end processes.
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| | ![]() | | | Taiwan Mobile Poaches Two Former Asia Pacific Broadband Executives
Taipei, Nov. 15, 2007 (CENS)--Taiwan Mobile Corp., currently Taiwan's No.2 telecom carrier by revenue, recently took on two former executives of Asia Pacific Broadband Wireless Communications Inc.
J.C. Cheng, a former Asia Pacific chief executive officer, and J.H. Yang, a former Asia Pacific vice president, are likely to hold chief executive position at Taiwan Mobile's Fu Yang Media Technology Co., Ltd. and vice presidency of its Taiwan Fixed Network Co., Ltd., respectively.
Fu Yang's president, Gorgy Chou, will be promoted to chief customer-service officer of Taiwan Mobile.
Taiwan Mobile and its affiliates including Taiwan Fixed Network, Taiwan Telecommunication Networks Service Co., Ltd. and Fu Yang will move in the direction of developing presence in digital convergence market after the management overhauls.
Cheng's and Yang's departures for Taiwan Mobile came as a surprise to the island's telecom industry in the sense that Asia Pacific and Taiwan Mobile have long rivaled each other.
Yang will lead Taiwan Fixed's business unit and be responsible for the company 's household broadband business. Cheng received computer-science doctorate degree from New York State University and worked at Bell Lab after graduation. He left Bell for Taiwan's United Fiber Optic Communication Inc., becoming the island's optic-fiber communication pioneer. Afterward, Asia Pacific poached him.
At Asia Pacific, Cheng engineered the cooperation between Asia Pacific and Taiwan Railway Co., Ltd. on laying island-wide optic fiber network, earning trusts of Asia Pacific's chairman, L.L. Wang and Wang's father, the wanted criminal Y.T. Wang. He rendered resignation after the government took over Asia Pacific after the senior Wang fled on charge of embezzlement.
Cheng will take charge of Fu Yang, Taiwan Mobile's cable-TV business connecting 5-600,000 subscribers.
Yang, Cheng and Taiwan Mobile have declined to make comment on the recruitments.
Industry watchers pointed out that Asia Pacific has become an executive supplier of Taiwan's telecom industry now since the outbreak of embezzlement scandal at the Wang's Rebar Group. In addition to Taiwan Mobile, Tatung Corp. and Vibo Telecom have convinced many Asia Pacific executives to defect to them.
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| | ![]() | | | New Applications Boost Small/Medium Display Market: iSuppli
Taipei, Nov. 15, 2007 (CENS)--While cellphone handsets continue to be the dominant application for small- and medium-sized liquid crystal displays (LCDs), new uses such as portable navigation devices (PNDs), digital photo frames, and MP3/portable media players (PMPs) are fueling sales in this sector, according to iSuppli Corp., a major market-research firm for the electronics industry.
The rising number of new applications would help drive global small/medium display shipments to 4.5 billion units by 2011, up from 3.8 billion in 2007, the research firm said.
iSuppli defines small/medium displays as those having a diagonal dimension of 9-inches or smaller.
Given that the main function of a PND is to display GPS information, the capability of showing detailed, color images of maps is essential. Because of this, iSupplie said, PND manufacturers have turned to thin-film transistor-LCDs (TFT-LCDs). This new demand has caused iSuppli to adjust upward its PND display market forecast to 60.5 million units by 2011, posting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 41.3% from 10.8 million in 2006. iSuppli's previous forecast was 54 million units in 2011.
Despite the falling prices for small/medium TFT-LCDs, revenue for displays shipped to PNDs will reach US$776 million by 2011 with a CAGR of 19.1%, up from US$324 million in 2006, iSuppli said. In 2007 alone, PND display revenue would nearly double to US$635 million, up from US$324 million in 2006, the company said.
But PNDs are not the only consumer-electronics application helping to drive a boom in the small/medium display market. MP3/PMPs now are one of the fastest-growing segments for such displays in terms of unit shipments.
iSuppli forecasted MP3/PMP unit shipments would reach 205 million units by the end of 2011, up from 163 million units in 2007. This equates to display revenue of US$1.6 billion by 2011, slightly down from revenue of US$1.7 billion in 2007. This decrease in revenue is due to the ever-declining prices for small/medium TFT-LCDs as capacities expand and manufacturing processes become more efficient.
Many other applications like digital photo frames and portable DVD players are consuming more displays every year, iSuppli said. Since these applications demand larger sized displays (around 7-inch), increased demand could have a greater impact on capacity allocation and supply/demand balance of not only these displays but also notebook PC displays that also are being manufactured in fourth-generation TFT-LCD plants.
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| | ![]() | | | CPT Reports Lucrative Biz Results for Q3
Taipei, Nov. 15, 2007 (CENS)--Chunghwa Picture Tubes, Ltd. (CPT), Taiwan's third-largest large-sized thin film transistor-liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panels, recently announced lucrative business results for the third quarter.
Kay Chiu, CPT's president, claimed that his company's shipment of large-sized panels would increase by about one million units. Next year, he said, CPT will adjust its product mix to pursue better profitability. Amid the declining capital spending and the better financial structure, he said, CPT is expected to maintain a high equipment-utilization ratio in 2008.
Some institutional investors estimated that CPT is expected to hit record annual earnings of about NT$20 billion (US$606.03 million at US$1: NT$33) in 2008.
In the third quarter, CPT's TFT-LCD business registered pretax earnings of NT$5.5 billion (US$166.67 million), and a profit margin of 23%. The company's net earnings for the quarter reached NT$5.1 billion (US$154.55 million), after deducting a loss of NT$400 million (US$12.12 million) posted by the cathode-ray tube (CRT) business division.
At CPT's shareholders conference, Chiu said that his company has yet to work out a clear plan for a new panel plant. As market demands are expected to remain strong through the second quarter of next year, CPT should not decrease production in the second half of the year, according to Chiu.
James Wu, CPTs vice president and chief financial officer (CFO), stressed that CPT would not have much capital spending next year and would announce its major investment projects late this year.
CPT's financial structure improved significantly in the third quarter, holding NT$25.7 billion (US$778.79 million) in cash and registering a greatly lowered net debt ratio of 65%. In addition, the firm is expected to get an injection of US$250 million from a fund-raising program in November.
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| | ![]() | | | FSC to Lower Ratio of Reserve Fund to 10% for Quality Banks
Taipei, Nov. 15, 2007 (CENS)—Cabinet-level Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) has recently decided to revise banking law to lower the ratio of the reserve fund for a bank to 10% of its after-tax profits from the existing 30%.
S.L. Chang, vice chairperson of FSC, disclosed that the revision was due to the request of banks, stipulating that any banks are subject to the lower ratio if their capital adequacy ratio or the so-called BIS (Bank for International Settlements) reach the standard of above 8% set by FSC.
Currently there are nine banks with capital adequacy ratio of above 10%, including Taiwan Cooperative Bank, and eight banks under financial holding companies (FHC). They will be subject to the new law and allowed to appropriate only 10% of their after-profits as reserve fund.
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| | ![]() | | | Cabinet Working Out Measures to Facilitate Commodity Imports
Taipei, Nov. 15, 2007 (CENS)--The Cabinet's taskforce, aimed at stabilizing commodity prices, recently held its second meeting to work out measures for facilitating the imports of commodity goods.
In its first meeting the taskforce concluded to lower the ceiling of price hike of oil to 12% from 15%. And the second meeting aimed to help the importers of commodity goods to lower import cost and get necessary loans for their long-term purchasing plans, hoping that they do not pass on the sharp price hikes to the consumer market.
At an interim press conference, Premier Chang Chun-hsiung emphasized that Taiwan's business climate is not as bad as some critics claimed because the island's basic economic indicators are still pretty good, not to mention its annual growth of consumer price index (CPI) is the lowest among Asia's four little dragons.
In January of 2007 the oil price of OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) stood at US$58 per barrel and the price jumped by 78.5% to US$90.7 per barrel on Nov. 9. In the same period, the price of gasoline from Taiwan's state-run Chinese Petroleum Corp. posted a modest growth of 17.2% to NT$30.7 (US$0.93 at US$1 = NT$33) per liter from NT$26.2 (US$0.79). So, Taiwan's oil price has not soared along with that of international oil, Chang pointed out.
Finance Minister Ho Chih-chin said that the government once announced to adopt flexible taxation and reduced the commodity taxes by 25% on such oil products as gasoline, diesel, and fuel oil from October to December of 2005. So, the Ministry of Finance witnessed a reduction of NT$6 billion (US$181.82 million) in tax revenues on the said three items during the three months. As a result, the CPI and WPI (wholesale price index) of the year edged down by 0.058% and 0.085%, respectively.
Taxation is a long-term policy that should not be used to solve temporary issues and the flexible taxation might help little to offset ballooning commodity prices, Ho remarked.
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