Taiwan may ease its controls on transport and commercial links with China if the mainland enters the WTO later this year, a report said yesterday.
Scenarios under discussion include direct air links between Taipei and Shanghai and direct shipping connections from Taiwan's southern port of Kaohsiung to China's Shanghai and Xiamen, a Chinese-language economic daily said.
Authorities here have been reluctant to lift bans on links with China because of Beijing's hostility to Taiwan, although it allowed limited direct shipping to the mainland from two offshore Taiwan islands in January.
"Concrete measures" will be worked out from the findings of the ad hoc national economic advisory council that opened Sunday, the newspaper said, quoting an unnamed official.
The council, which includes economists, business leaders and government officials, will hold talks until August 18 and present conclusions at a full session meeting slated for Aug. 24 to 26.
President Chen Shui-bian (
Taiwan's entrepreneurs have pushed for closer links with China by lifting the bans -- in force since Taiwan and China split in 1949 at the end of a civil war -- as they allow production to be moved to China where they can enjoy cheaper labor and land.
Local companies have poured about US$70 billion into China since Taipei relaxed rules on civil exchanges in 1987.
Taiwan has adopted a "go slow" policy on China-bound investment since 1996, aimed at ensuring Taiwan does not become too economically dependent on the mainland and preventing an exodus of capital and technological know-how.
The policy bans single investments worth more than US$50 million and those related to infrastructure and advanced technology projects. However, such investments are often made through foreign subsidiaries of Taiwanese companies.
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