Over 1,000 of the nation's tobacco growers yesterday petitioned for a raise in this year's government purchase volume of domestic tobacco, to compensate for investments they have already made.
"The nation's tobacco growers have poured money into necessary investment, such as soil preparation, for the more than 2,100 hectares of [tobacco] farmland across the country," Chen Man-hsiang (陳滿祥), representative of a local tobacco growers' association, told the Taipei Times in a telphone interview.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
The growers hope the Executive Yuan will increase the buying volume of locally-grown tobacco leaves for this year from the previously agreed half of the output to 70 percent to make up for their investment, Chen said.
Tobacco farmers also hope the government will shorten its proposed three-year purchasing scheme to two years, as revenues from reduced production in the third year would not be even enough to cover the reaping costs, Chen said.
Switch crops
The Cabinet decided last month to continue buying locally-grown tobacco leaves and lowering the purchase volume over the next three years. The Cabinet also instructed the Council of Agriculture to help the tobacco growers switch from tobacco to other crops.
According to the government's plan, this year it will purchase about 274.5 million kilograms, or roughly half the volume it bought last year. Next year, the government will buy 20 percent less in volume than this year's amount, with the same reduction in 2006.
Extra expenses
The state-run Taiwan Tobacco and Liquor Corp (TTL,
"[The policy makes] us incur an extra NT$400 million of inefficient expenses, at the same time as we're working to improve our spending efficiency, which has provoked resistance from employees," said TTL Chairman Morgan Hwang (
TTL's extra expenses won't deter it from its privatization process. By the end of next year the company expects that less than 50 percent of its shares will be government-owned. The extra expenses for purchasing could continue indefinitely, though, as the government will likely remain a large shareholder, Hwang said.
Hwang admitted that this could have a negative impact on the company's plan to get strategic investment from foreign-owned tobacco companies, and could decrease the company's share price.
The former tobacco and liquor monopoly has up to 20 million kilograms of tobacco inventory in the warehouse, which may not be consumed in the next five years, adding to the company's extra storage and manpower expenses, Hwang said.
TTL reported a pretax profit of NT$6.8 billion between January and last month and expects to create NT$10 billion this year, up 20 percent from last year, according to the company.
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce