Taiwan can finally export the non-transgenic papaya to the Japanese market following an eight-year effort in designing the appropriate heat treatment for local papaya, the Council of Agriculture said yesterday, citing an announcement made by Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forests and Fisheries.
The nation's papaya was previously denied entry by the Japanese government due to concerns over the potential spread of pests of citrus and other subtropical fruits, according to the council's Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine.
In Taiwan, the Oriental fruit fly and the melon fruit fly are common pests associated with certain fruits, including papaya, the bureau said.
In March, 1997, the government conducted infestation measures involving a vapor heat treatment technology which was developed by researchers at the bureau's branch in Taichung and sent the results to Japan. The reports said that eggs and larvae inside papaya can be destroyed at temperatures higher than 47.2?C. Japanese officials, however, demanded further evidence.
"Japan takes pest control very seriously," Chang Shu-young (
"In February, Japanese inspectors visited Taiwan to observe the operation of vapor heat treatment in a bid to recognize the effectiveness of the technology," he added.
Currently, vapor heat is an approved treatment for non-transgenic papaya. In addition to the factory in Taichung, Chang said three new facilities will be established in southern Taiwan in order to boost the daily capacity of treating papaya before it is exported. The expanded facilities will allow for about 60 tonnes of papaya to be treated a day.
Taiwanese papaya was exported to Japan up until 1975. However, papaya ring spot virus soon devastated the industry. For this, several breeding programs were launched to improve its quality.
Currently, Taiwan produces 140,000 tonnes of papaya annually, valued at NT$2 billion. About 85 percent of Taiwan's papaya is classified as "Tainung No.2," which has a high tolerance to the ring spot virus.
Agricultural authorities have been expanding overseas markets in recent years to help absorb a surplus of the fruit, including export to many Southeast Asian countries as well as China.
How bid the Japanese market will be for Taiwanese papaya remains uncertain. "If we can export about 3,000 tonnes of papaya to Japan annually, this will be a boon for thousands of Taiwanese farmers," Chang 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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts