The Ministry of Transportation and Communications said it's studying alternatives to building a direct train line to the international airport, but lawmakers yesterday said that the stalled project is the latest example of how Taiwan is falling behind rival China.
After six years of negotiations, last week the ministry dropped a plan to have Evertransit International Development Corp (
The deal fell through after Evertransit failed to secure a syndicated loan of NT$55 billion from banks by the Dec. 31 deadline, as required by the ministry contract.
Securing the loan was the first of several steps needed to make the project a reality. The project requires NT$200 billion (US$5.75 billion) in financing and land acquisition.
Evertransit is a subsidiary of Ever Fortune Industrial Co (
But at a question-and-answer session held at the Legislative Yuan yesterday, the DDP's Chiu Yi-ying (
Both Chiu and Cheng said that the stalled project was an embarrassment to Taiwan because China is already testing the world's first commercially operated magnetic levitation or "maglev" train. The train, which links Shanghai's Putong airport and a commercial district, was built within 21 months, following a four-month feasibility study, they said.
In response, Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Ling-san (
"If I were the transportation minister of China, the Shanghai maglev train would have been completed in one year," Lin said. "This is the price of democracy," he added.
Although Taiwanese are proud of their democracy, many also lament the nation's fierce political squabbling, lingering corruption and the long amount of time needed to build a consensus on major projects.
Some lawmakers said that the nation's democracy was being abused.
The minister responded by promising to come up with alternative plans to the transit project by next month.
The ministry so far has two backup plans -- to transform and extend the existing Taoyuan-Linkou train line into a transit line linking CKS airport to Taipei, or to build special lines from the airport to stations of the Taiwan high-speed railway now under construction, Lin said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”