The government needs to work more aggressively to attract talent from other countries, in addition to easing the restrictions on foreign professionals working in Taiwan, said the former head of the Council for Economic Planning and Development.
Chen Po-chih (陳博志), who now heads the Taiwan Think Tank (台灣智庫), said the government's current policy of importing a massive low-skilled workforce is incompatible with Taiwan's long-term economic development.
Chen said technology-intensive products now take up 40 percent of Taiwan's exports, compared to more than 60 percent in developed countries.
According to Chen, the gap highlights the need for Taiwan to cultivate high-tech talent and attract talent from other countries.
Chen's comments were reflected in the annual white paper released by the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei, which said Taiwan's labor laws risked hobbling the economy.
In its business confidence survey, the majority of AmCham members said access to a high-quality labor force was the most essential part of improving their ventures in Taiwan.
The white paper said "virtually every AmCham industry and professional-service category has complaints about Taiwan's restrictions on the free flow of human capital."
Outdated and inappropriate work-permit requirements and impossibly high professional licensing requirements for foreigners pose a serious impediments to business development, the paper said.
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