The Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said yesterday that the government has spared no effort to improve cross-strait economic relations, and suggested that recent criticisms by the American Chamber of Commerce in Taipei (AmCham) "overshoot the truth."
An opinion piece published in AmCham's latest monthly Taiwan Business Topics said that "Taiwan is backsliding toward becoming a regional backwater," because "a plethora of regulations restricting the movement of people, capital, goods and services to and from China."
The article also noted that instead of leveraging natural advantages such as proximity and language with China, the regulatory environment has handicapped Taiwan's leading companies, while foreign competitors have forged ahead.
"AmCham speaks from the perspective of business interests and has larger scope for imagination and criticism," the council said in a statement. "But the government will still take the criticisms on board as a reference for policymaking."
Gradually lifting bans on goods imported from China, allowing more Chinese citizens to visit Taiwan for business and implementing direct chartered flights are examples of the government's unilateral efforts to promote cross-strait business relations, the council said.
The government is also moving toward loosening the China-bound investment cap of 40 percent of a company's net worth, it said.
The council disagreed entirely with AmCham's statement that "perhaps the most disappointing and depressing aspect of the past six years has been the polarization of politics and absence of consistent, enlightened government."
It said that the government held the Conference on Sustaining Taiwan's Economic Development in July and has mapped out major construction projects, such as the three-year "Big Warmth" plan to stimulate the economy and improve social welfare -- demonstrating the government's determination to boost economic growth with a long-term plan.
Evidence of Taiwan's recovering economy can be seen in the latest GDP growth forecast, which is expected to hit 4.39 percent this year and continue to rise to 4.6 percent next year, according to statistics from the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, the council said.
The council also said yesterday that it was planning to begin cooperating with local governments to create a better investment climate for service-oriented businesses starting early next year.
Citing government's statistics, the council said revenues generated by the service sector already accounted for 73.8 percent of GDP and that some 5.8 million -- out of a total of more than 10 million workers -- were employed in the sector as of the end of the last quarter.
Additional reporting by CNA
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to