Taipei, Jan. 9 (CNA) Formosa Plastics Group (FPG), one of the leading conglomerates in Taiwan, said Saturday that is has decided to pay its employees a year-end bonus of 3.66 months' wages.
A bonus of 3.66 months' pay would be more than the 3.5 months' salary expected by the workers' unions of the group's four subsidiaries -- Formosa Plastics Corp., Nan Ya Plastics Corp., Formosa Chemicals & Fibre Corp. and Formosa Petrochemical Corp. -- but less than the 4.94 months' wages paid last year.
In 2020, the aggregate net profit of the four companies fell by an annual 42.7 percent to NT$72.69 billion (US$2.56 billion), as they and the rest of the global petrochemical industry were hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.
FPG's year-end bonuses are usually closely watched by the market, because they tend to set the trend in Taiwan's old economy industrial sector.
FPG President Wang Wen-yuan (王文淵) is expected to meet with representatives of the workers' unions soon to officially announce the decision on the year-end bonuses, the company said.
On top of the bonus, the conglomerate is likely to add a cash gift, which was NT$20,000 per employee last year.
In 2020, Formosa Chemicals & Fibre posted NT$19.54 billion in net profit, or NT$3.34 in earnings per share, the highest among the four entities. Its net income, however, fell 34.2 percent from a year earlier, as product prices plunged amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
After a slow first half, momentum picked up for Formosa Chemicals & Fibre, as many economies worldwide reopened their businesses.
Formosa Plastics, meanwhile, posted a 46.5 percent annual decline in 2020 net profit to NT$19.97 billion, or NT$3.14 per share, citing a 12-38 percent annual drop in product prices due to the pandemic.
The company said its operations in the U.S. market booked only NT$310 million in net income, sharply down from NT$4 billion in 2019.
For its part, Formosa Petrochemical suffered a 79.7 percent decline in net profit in 2020, when international crude oil prices tumbled, and its net profit was NT$7.48 billion, or NT$0.79 per share.
Bucking the downturn seen by the other three companies, Nan Ya Plastics posted NT$25.70 billion in net profit, or NT$3.24 per share, in 2020, an annual increase of 11.4 percent.
The company said its electronics material operations, which account for 43.8 percent of its total sales, got a boost from 5G applications and a booming stay-at-home economy.
