Taiwan may soon allow tourists from China to visit Taiwan, following a consensus reached by an economic advisory council over the weekend to ease current restrictions on a trial basis, local Chinese-language media reported yesterday.
The first batch of tourists from China may arrive in Taiwan as soon as October, a local Chinese-language newspaper said, quoting DPP lawmaker Chang Ching-fang (
Chang said the government may soon unveil a new policy on the opening-up of Taiwan to Chinese tourists and that, if certain visa and other formalities were resolved smoothly, the first batch of Chinese tourists could arrive as early as October.
He also said in the trial phase the opening-up would focus on Chinese tourists visiting the island as part of a tour group. In addition, the number of tourists allowed into the country would initially be limited to 1,000 per day.
The recommendation was one of several reached by politicians, academics and business leaders at a landmark economic conference over the weekend aimed at stimulating Taiwan's flagging economy. The gathering also proposed an easing of current limits on investments in China.
While Taiwan has allowed its citizens to freely travel to China since 1987, only a small number of Chinese have been able to visit Taiwan due to restrictions imposed by both sides of the Taiwan Strait after the end of a civil war in 1949.
Despite being separated for more than half a century, Beijing still regards the Taiwan as a renegade province and has pledged to bring it back into the fold, by force if necessary.
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said it would work with US chipmaker Intel Corp to jointly develop and deploy next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure and intelligent computing platforms in a move to capture booming demand for AI computing systems. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康), said in a statement that the partnership would combine its global manufacturing scale, system integration expertise and AI data center deployment capabilities with Intel’s strengths in processor architecture, silicon technologies and software ecosystem. The companies said they plan to work on equipment used in AI data centers, including server racks powered by