Industrialists yesterday welcomed President Chen Shui-bian's (
Chen said the government is formulating a plan to facilitate chartered passenger and cargo flights between China and Taiwan. He also said that he hopes to seek further progress in direct links.
"We are glad to see Chen express good intentions for cross-strait relations," said Rock Hsu (
"In fact, we proposed the chartered flight idea to the government two years ago," Hsu said.
Direct transport links -- which have long been urged by the business community -- as well as other business issues such as an investment protection agreement should be resolved soon, or these problems will negatively impact Taiwan's industries, Hsu said.
Business ties between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have grown regardless of cross-strait tensions. Last month, exports to Hong Kong and China totaled US$5.45 billion, or 36.4 percent of the nation's total shipments, according to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Finance.
Civil aviation industry officials said there are about 4 million Chinese-bound Taiwanese business-people traveling between Taiwan and China via Hong Kong or a third country every year. The extra costs in such non-direct flights were estimated to reach NT$30 billion, while the extra costs for cargo transportation reached NT$100 billion.
China Airlines (
There was no comment yesterday from EVA Airways (
The two carriers currently work with their Chinese counterparts, including China Eastern Airlines Corp (
Wang Tiao-chun (
"The government has been advocating turning Taiwan into a regional hub in Asia Pacific, but the role will be played by Hong Kong or Shanghai, instead of Taiwan because of the absence of direct links," Wang said.
In response, Council for Eco-nomic Planning and Development Vice Chairman Thomas Yeh (葉 明峰), said the government might initially open chartered flights during specific times of the year, such as the Lunar New Year or the Dragon Boat Festival.
But the proposal, as well as various other cross-strait issues, can be carried out only when the authorities of the two sides reach a consensus, he 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