The government will ask more bakeries to lower the price of bread, cakes and other flour products after prompting the state-owned Taiwan Sugar Corp’s (台灣糖業) hypermarket chain store Taisuco (台糖量販店) to take the initiative with price cuts.
“We will meet with some leading bakery firms soon to prevail upon them to reduce prices as international wheat prices go down,” Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) told a press conference at the Executive Yuan.
Shih made the remarks after the weekly Cabinet-level task force on commodity price stabilization convened by Vice Premier Paul Chiu (邱正雄) had concluded.
Shih said that because international wheat prices are expected to decline, this would place pressure on bakery businesses and push them to cut prices.
“Although [the government] can’t force bakeries to reduce prices, we will use more than just moral persuasion,” Shih said, without elaborating on possible measures.
INTERNATIONAL PRICES
The international price of wheat has fallen 40 percent from a record peak early this year, but the reduction in prices hasn’t been reflected in consumer-end products.
“The gap exists because of a time lag of two to three months from the date importers purchase wheat from overseas and the date the wheat is received. Flour importers should be able to significantly reduce flour prices in September,” Shih said.
Shih said that the government wished to urge flour importers and bakeries to adjust their prices as soon as possible.
Separately, Taiwan’s rice exports surged 20-fold in the first half of this year because of a global rice shortage caused by main rice exporting countries cutting or banning exports, a newspaper report said yesterday.
In the first half of the year, Taiwan exported 6,634 tonnes of rice, up from 229 tonnes for the same period last year, earning US$8.2 million compared with US$230,000 earned in the first half of last year, the United Evening News said, quoting the Council of Agriculture (COA).
RICE EXPORTS
The huge export increase is unusual for Taiwan because the nation’s rice — said to be among the best in the world — is costly and grown in small quantities, just enough for domestic consumption with some surplus for export.
Local rice, similar to Japanese rice, is short, round and hard, with a good fragrance and a sweet taste.
One tonne of Taiwanese rice sells for US$1,200, compared with US$300 for 1 tonne of Southeast Asian long-grain rice and US$900 for 1 tonne of California long-grain rice.
The COA attributed the surge in Taiwan’s rice exports to soaring rice prices, which caused panic on the international rice market, prompting leading rice exporting nations to halt or ban exports to guard against domestic rice shortages.
The reduced supply caused some rice importing countries to buy rice from Taiwan despite the high price, the evening paper said.
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said it plans to ship its new 1 megawatt charging systems for electric trucks and buses in the first half of next year at the earliest. The new charging piles, which deliver up to 1 megawatt of charging power, are designed for heavy-duty electric vehicles, and support a maximum current of 1,500 amperes and output of 1,250 volts, Delta said in a news release. “If everything goes smoothly, we could begin shipping those new charging systems as early as in the first half of next year,” a company official said. The new
RSS