Taiwan Electricity Prices Speculated To Jump up to 25%
Taiwan's main power supplier, state-owned Taipower, will reportedly raise electricity prices as much as 25 percent to avoid making further losses this year.
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00:00 Concern over Taiwan's energy supply is growing amid predictions that the country's main power
00:05 company could be hiking up prices.
00:07 We're joined now by our reporter Joyce Tseung here in Taipei.
00:10 Joyce, what are we hearing?
00:15 Speculation has come out that Taiwan's main power company, that's the state-owned Taipower,
00:20 may be hiking up electricity prices by as much as a whopping 25 percent.
00:26 Now, Taipower has been bleeding money, keeping prices low for decades.
00:31 Over the past two years, the company has lost 14 billion U.S. dollars but only gotten just
00:37 over 1 billion in government subsidies.
00:40 Now, earlier, I spoke to a Taipower representative who denied any pending plans to raise prices.
00:46 But the economics minister who also heads Taipower has said that the goal this year
00:51 is to not make losses and that subsidies will be prioritized as the way out.
00:56 But doing the math, you have 14 billion dollars in losses and just over 1 in subsidies.
01:02 That seems like an ambitious goal.
01:04 Now, if prices do go up, it's likely going to hit big companies first.
01:08 How would an electricity hike affect Taiwan's high-tech sector, especially its chip makers?
01:14 Well, if a price hike were to happen, it would likely affect heavy users first, like chip
01:20 makers.
01:21 They're notorious as being power-intensive.
01:24 And the bigger concern, though, would be that the price hike would be passed on to consumers,
01:30 not just in Taiwan, but around the world.
01:33 Taiwan makes the majority of the world's chips, which power essentially everything with an
01:38 on switch.
01:39 So the knock-on effects here are considerable for Taiwan's economy, but also the global
01:43 one.
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