Premier Frank Hsieh (
Hsieh made the remarks in response to a question from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Chuan-chiao (
CRiticism
According to media reports, several manufacturers have criticized the regulation that the amount of China-bound investment by Taiwan manufacturers should not surpass 40 percent of the net worth of their parent companies.
FSC Chairman Kong Jaw-sheng (
The current investment ceiling is set up to prevent Chinese operations from negatively affecting parent companies in Taiwan, according to Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Steve Chen (
At present, Taiwanese firms with net worth of below NT$5.0 billion (US$148.8 million) are allowed to invest up to 40 percent of net worth in China.
Cumulative China-bound investments for Taiwanese companies with net worth of NT$5 billion to NT$10 billion are capped at 30 percent of net worth, while the ceiling is set at 20 percent for companies with net worth of over NT$10 billion, according to the ministry's Investment Commission.
China replaced the US as Taiwan's largest market in November 2002, despite mounting political tensions between them.
China is also Taiwan's leading foreign investment destination, with an estimated US$80 billion invested over the years in various projects.
Tourism
Lee also asked Hsieh about the possibility of opening Taiwan to Chinese tourists in March, to which the premier responded that it will depend on the progress in cross-strait negotiations. He also reiterated that opening up to Chinese tourists is an established government policy.
Hsieh announced in May that the government would allow as many as 1,000 tourists per day from China to come to Taiwan for sightseeing.
In the past, only Chinese living abroad or coming from a third country or area were permitted to visit Taiwan. But China has so far failed to add Taiwan to its list of approved overseas travel destinations.
In the face of the daily ceiling on visitors imposed by Taiwan, Chinese tour operators suggested that their Taiwanese counterparts design high-end tours for Chinese tourists.
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