| Taiwan's production value of glass products in 2005 posted a moderate annual growth of 6% to reach NT$28 billion due mainly to the gradual turnaround of the local construction industry. Some leading local makers such as Taiwan Glass Industry Corp. and Hwa Hsia Glass Co. are actively proceeding with their business deployments in mainland China. Taiwan Glass, for instance, has set up a plant in the mainland and its combined annual output of glass products across the Taiwan Strait will amount to two million metric tons, making it the world's sixth-largest maker of high quality plate glass.
Taiwan is now the third-largest supplier of printed circuit boards (PCBs) in the world, and turns out 45% of the global glass fiber, which is one of the major materials for PCBs. As the world's No.1 supplier of glass fiber, Taiwan turned out 210,000 metric tons of such fiber, valued at NT$23 billion, in 2005.
Fueled by the thriving TFT-LCD (thin film transistor-liquid crystal display) industry, leading international glass makers have moved to set up plants in Taiwan for the production of glass substrates, constituting a new era for Taiwan's glass industry. The annual output value of glass substrates in Taiwan is expected to reach NT$50 billion soon, 1.7 times that of the local glass industry. |
