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.
JITTERS: Nexperia has a 20 percent market share for chips powering simpler features such as window controls, and changing supply chains could take years European carmakers are looking into ways to scratch components made with parts from China, spooked by deepening geopolitical spats playing out through chipmaker Nexperia BV and Beijing’s export controls on rare earths. To protect operations from trade ructions, several automakers are pushing major suppliers to find permanent alternatives to Chinese semiconductors, people familiar with the matter said. The industry is considering broader changes to its supply chain to adapt to shifting geopolitics, Europe’s main suppliers lobby CLEPA head Matthias Zink said. “We had some indications already — questions like: ‘How can you supply me without this dependency on China?’” Zink, who also
At least US$50 million for the freedom of an Emirati sheikh: That is the king’s ransom paid two weeks ago to militants linked to al-Qaeda who are pushing to topple the Malian government and impose Islamic law. Alongside a crippling fuel blockade, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) has made kidnapping wealthy foreigners for a ransom a pillar of its strategy of “economic jihad.” Its goal: Oust the junta, which has struggled to contain Mali’s decade-long insurgency since taking power following back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, by scaring away investors and paralyzing the west African country’s economy.
BUST FEARS: While a KMT legislator asked if an AI bubble could affect Taiwan, the DGBAS minister said the sector appears on track to continue growing The local property market has cooled down moderately following a series of credit control measures designed to contain speculation, the central bank said yesterday, while remaining tight-lipped about potential rule relaxations. Lawmakers in a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee voiced concerns to central bank officials that the credit control measures have adversely affected the government’s tax income and small and medium-sized property developers, with limited positive effects. Housing prices have been climbing since 2016, even when the central bank imposed its first set of control measures in 2020, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) said. “Since the second half of
AI BOOST: Next year, the cloud and networking product business is expected to remain a key revenue pillar for the company, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu said Manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted its best third-quarter profit in the company’s history, backed by strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Net profit expanded 17 percent annually to NT$57.67 billion (US$1.86 billion) from NT$44.36 billion, the company said. On a quarterly basis, net profit soared 30 percent from NT$44.36 billion, it said. Hon Hai, which is Apple Inc’s primary iPhone assembler and makes servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators, said earnings per share expanded to NT$4.15 from NT$3.55 a year earlier and NT$3.19 in the second quarter. Gross margin improved to 6.35 percent,
RSS