The Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday that since the nation relies entirely on imports for its coal supply, it has to diversify its import sources to ensure smooth operations.
Taiwan also needs to sign long-term purchase contracts to stabilize its coal supplies, ministry officials said.
The officials said that total coal imports amounted to around 65 million tonnes last year, mainly from Australia, Indonesia and China, which accounted for 39 percent, 37 percent and 20 percent respectively.
The ministry has instructed Taiwan Power Co (台電) to step up coal exploration overseas so as to ensure a steady supply, the officials said.
World coal prices have continued to surge since 2003, mainly because of the rise of China and India, which has led to massive demand and tight supply. The officials noted that major coal producers such as Australia have seen coal prices rise by 46 percent since early this year.
China announced on Jan. 24 a suspension of coal exports for two months because of its own urgent need for coal and electricity due to heavy snowstorms that wreaked havoc in some areas of the country, while production in South Africa’s coal mines has been affected by electricity shortages during the same period, prompting it to also suspend coal exports.
“World coal supplies over the past year have been the tightest since the second energy crisis of 1979,” officials 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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained