Pan-blue lawmakers yesterday backed a proposal filed by a consumer group requesting a motion to freeze the state-run Chinese Petroleum Corp's (CPC, 中油) budget for next year should the corporation refuse to cancel its floating price mechanism.
Consumers' Foundation (消基會) chairman Cheng Jen-hung (程仁宏) met with legislative caucuses to discuss his proposal yesterday, following the CPC's decision to hike wholesale gasoline and diesel prices by NT$0.3 per liter from midnight on Tuesday.
The price increase was the first time that the CPC had made an adjustment in the five weeks since it implemented the floating price mechanism, which lets the CPC determine gas prices in accordance with changes in the international market.
"The CPC shouldn't be increasing its prices now. Instead, it should be reducing the price by NT$1.8 per liter," Cheng said, adding that "the CPC didn't adjust the price downwards when international prices went down last time."
The CPC said the price increase was calculated using the change in price for West Texas International crude over the past week in New York trading.
But Cheng said that it was unreasonable for the CPC to follow the West Texas price, as the CPC purchases crude oil from Middle Eastern countries and Indonesia.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative caucus whip Tsai Chin-lung (蔡錦隆) said that the party would boycott reviewing the budget of the CPC and the Ministry of Economic Affairs' Bureau of Energy if the CPC persists with its floating price mechanism.
People First Party Spokesman Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) said that the party would side with the KMT on this issue as the floating price mechanism would not bring stability to the economy.
In response, the CPC said in a statement yesterday that the three price hikes on Feb. 14, April 19 and July 7 did not fully match the rise in price of crude oil, and therefore it has no room to drop prices by NT$1.82 per liter as the Consumers Foundation suggested.
The government lowered the gasoline commodity tax by 25 percent in October last year, which effectively cut gasoline prices by NT$1.7 per liter. The tax cut was restored in January, but the CPC said it did not pass on the tax to vehicle users.
As a result, the company made NT$32.6 billion less for the first half of the year, the CPC said.
The CPC also argued that its prices are the lowest among neighboring countries such as Japan and Korea. Taking the rates before the adjustment on July 7 as an example, the CPC said the before-tax wholesale price of 92-octane unleaded gasoline was NT$15.63 per liter in Taiwan, lower than Japan's NT$18.14 a liter.
As for the weekly price adjustment mechanism which the company links domestic gasoline and diesel prices to benchmark WTI crude oil trading in New York, the CPC said it is on trial until the end of the year and it will inspect whether the measure is suitable then.
The CPC stressed that adjusting prices to properly reflect costs is reasonable.
Should it absorb the costs and incur losses, all taxpayers will have to cover the deficit for vehicle users, which is also unfair to those who do not drive, the CPC said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”