Australian trade officials yesterday expressed their interest in selling uranium to Taiwan to fuel the yet-to-be-completed fourth nuclear power plant but were told by Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Hsin-yi (
Lin, who was in Darwin to attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) minister's meeting, told Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile that there could be no discussion of the power plant's fuel supply until the committee tasked with evaluating the project's necessity had presented its findings.
The No. 4 Nuclear Plant evaluation committee is expected to convene on June 15 and is made up of 20 people, including scholars, government officials and party members from across political lines.
Lin said that before he left for Australia he had presented to the Cabinet for approval a list of proposed names for inclusion on the evaluation committee, which if received would pave the way for discussions to begin next week.
The Ministry of Economic Affair's Energy Commission (
He said he hoped that by announcing the committee's findings via the Net, people would be able to clearly understand the opposing arguments on the matter.
In related news, Lin responded to questions about the chances of Australia LNG winning the contract to supply Taiwan with natural gas by saying only that the Taiwan Power Company was tendering the deal through an open bidding process, and that the government welcomes all bids that meet the necessary conditions.
While it is unclear whether Lin met with Australia LNG executives during the APEC ministerial meeting, company executives in Perth confirmed that Australia LNG vice president Craig Fekes had travelled to Taiwan last week to meet with government officials to discuss the deal.
Australia LNG is bidding primarily to sell gas that will fuel the Tatan Power station being built in Taoyuan County, but demand for liquified natural gas will likely increase following the economic ministry's recent approval for the construction of two new gas-fired power plants.
The ministry said in a statement that private independent power producers (IPP) Star Energy Corporation and Sun Ba Power Corporation have received permission to construct plants in Changhua County and Tainan County, respectively.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day