The nation’s economy will benefit significantly from cross-strait weekend charter flights and the influx of Chinese tourists, but the economic effects may come at a slower pace than expected, a local economist said yesterday.
“The positive effects might kick in around the latter half of 2009,” said Wea Chi-lin (魏啟林), a professor at the College of Management at National Taiwan University.
Addressing a seminar hosted by the Asia Pacific Industrial Analysis Association (APIAA), Wea said the weekend direct charter flights beginning today were not regular flights and would therefore be more symbolically significant than anything, but would lead to more substantial changes down the road.
“The significance is that Taiwan will join the logistical network of the Asia-Pacific region by offering international businesses direct access to explore the huge Chinese market,” Wea said.
He said that in the past Taiwan had been ignored by some international investors because of the lack of cross-strait links.
As of today, 36 cross-strait charter flights will operate each weekend.
But Wea said the full benefits of cross-strait air links would not materialize until regular scheduled flights were introduced.
“Arrangements for regular cross-strait flights are expected to be completed by the latter half of 2009 to bring real benefits to Taiwan’s economy,” said Wea, who is also the chairman of Paradigm Asset Management Co.
As for the influx of tourists from China, Wea said the number of tourists expected this year depended on further negotiations between Taiwan and China.
More than 700 Chinese tourists are expected to arrive today in 25 tour groups.
The government initially estimated that opening Taiwan to 3,000 tourists from China per day would boost economic growth by 0.48 percent this year.
However, China has since limited the number of tourists to 1,000 per day.
“But the increased number of tourists could cause problems that could drive up social costs significantly,” Wea said.
For example, new diseases could be introduced into Taiwan, he said.
“The government needs to develop precautionary measures to deal with these potential problems,” he said.
SECOND-RATE: Models distilled from US products do not perform the same as the original and undo measures that ensure the systems are neutral, the US’ cable said The US Department of State has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it said are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索), to steal intellectual property from US AI labs, according to a diplomatic cable. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models.” Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones to lower the costs of training a powerful new
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings’ planned acquisition of Foodpanda’s Taiwan operations has yet to enter the formal review stage, as regulators await supplementary documents, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said yesterday. Acting FTC Chairman Chen Chih-min (陳志民) told the legislature’s Economics Committee that although Grab submitted its application on March 27, the case has not been officially accepted because required materials remain incomplete. Once the filing is finalized, the FTC would launch a formal probe into the deal, focusing on issues such as cross-shareholding and potential restrictions on market competition, Chen told lawmakers. Grab last month announced that it would acquire
Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) have repeatedly hit new highs, but an equity analyst said the stock’s valuation remains within a reasonable range and any pullback would likely be technical. The contract chipmaker’s historical price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio has ranged between 20 and 30, Cathay Futures Consultant Co (國泰證期) analyst Tsai Ming-han (蔡明翰) told Central News Agency. With market consensus projecting that TSMC would post earnings per share of about NT$100 (US$3.17) this year, supported by strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, and the stock currently trading at a P/E ratio of below 25, Tsai said the valuation
The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has triggered a seismic reshuffling of global equity markets, with Taiwan and South Korea muscling past European nations one by one. With its stock market now valued at nearly US$4.3 trillion, Taiwan surpassed the UK, Europe’s biggest market, earlier this month, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. South Korea is about US$140 billion away from doing the same. The tech-heavy Asian markets have shot past Germany and France in the past seven months. The shift is largely down to massive gains in shares of three companies that provide essential hardware for AI: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電),
RSS