The European Chamber of Commerce Taipei (ECCT) yesterday laid out a one-year timetable in three phases for future policy deregulation that the foreign business chamber expects president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to deliver soon after he takes office next month.
By August, the ECCT expects Ma to realize his campaign promises, including direct weekend charter flights to China, allowing 3,000 Chinese tourists per day to Taiwan and eliminating the 40 percent cap on China-bound investments while providing tax incentives for high-tech companies, as a way to boost the local economy and create a friendly environment for foreign businesses, ECCT chairman Philippe Pellegrin told reporters after a board meeting with the chamber’s 15 directors.
“After the election, Taiwan is back on the map,” said Pellegrin, who is also the senior country officer of investment bank Calyon’s Taipei Branch, while expressing European businesses’ support for the new government’s efforts to better link the local economy to that of the region.
Pellegrin said there appeared to be a change in the mood at European headquarters as some European businesses, which had bypassed Taiwan for years, were reevaluating how they could leverage the nation’s strength to increase their presence in the greater China region.
Another ECCT director, Jim McCabe, president of Standard Chartered Bank Taiwan (渣打銀行), was also “upbeat’ about the local economy and the financial sector’s outlook.
The chamber said that the nation’s strengths are now becoming better known among European businesses with its well-educated work force, good infrastructure and relatively good quality of living environment in Asia.
Some of the chamber’s members, however, said they would be very disappointed if Ma failed to make progress in his first year in office.
“He has a mandate to accelerate, otherwise we may be talking negatively in a year,” said ECCT director Alois Hofbauer, who is also the general manager of Nestle Taiwan Ltd (雀巢).
In addition, the chamber expects that by the second phase in December, Ma would lift foreign investment limits such as the 0.4 percent ceiling on Chinese H-shares, remove the ban on Chinese imports and develop a global marketing campaign to highlight the nation’s advantages and development potential.
In a year, the chamber hopes Ma will fulfill his “roadmap to prosperity” by implementing regular direct passenger and cargo flights across the Strait, lowering corporate and personal income tax to levels that are competitive with Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea, and extending the tax loss carry forward period to 15 to 20 years from the current 10 years, while revitalizing the coastal zones to develop the yachting and water sports industry.
Taiwan’s exports soared 56 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of US$64.05 billion last month, propelled by surging global demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and cloud service infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) called the figure an unexpected upside surprise, citing a wave of technology orders from overseas customers alongside the usual year-end shopping season for technology products. Growth is likely to remain strong this month, she said, projecting a 40 percent to 45 percent expansion on an annual basis. The outperformance could prompt the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
The demise of the coal industry left the US’ Appalachian region in tatters, with lost jobs, spoiled water and countless kilometers of abandoned underground mines. Now entrepreneurs are eyeing the rural region with ambitious visions to rebuild its economy by converting old mines into solar power systems and data centers that could help fuel the increasing power demands of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. One such project is underway by a non-profit team calling itself Energy DELTA (Discovery, Education, Learning and Technology Accelerator) Lab, which is looking to develop energy sources on about 26,305 hectares of old coal land in
Netflix on Friday faced fierce criticism over its blockbuster deal to acquire Warner Bros Discovery. The streaming giant is already viewed as a pariah in some Hollywood circles, largely due to its reluctance to release content in theaters and its disruption of traditional industry practices. As Netflix emerged as the likely winning bidder for Warner Bros — the studio behind Casablanca, the Harry Potter movies and Friends — Hollywood’s elite launched an aggressive campaign against the acquisition. Titanic director James Cameron called the buyout a “disaster,” while a group of prominent producers are lobbying US Congress to oppose the deal,
Two Chinese chipmakers are attracting strong retail investor demand, buoyed by industry peer Moore Threads Technology Co’s (摩爾線程) stellar debut. The retail portion of MetaX Integrated Circuits (Shanghai) Co’s (上海沐曦) upcoming initial public offering (IPO) was 2,986 times oversubscribed on Friday, according to a filing. Meanwhile, Beijing Onmicro Electronics Co (北京昂瑞微), which makes radio frequency chips, was 2,899 times oversubscribed on Friday, its filing showed. The bids coincided with Moore Threads’ trading debut, which surged 425 percent on Friday after raising 8 billion yuan (US$1.13 billion) on bets that the company could emerge as a viable local competitor to Nvidia
RSS