Newly appointed Vice Minister of Transportation and Communications Yeh Kuang-shih (葉匡時) said in a meeting with the press last week that the nation should strive to raise the added value of seaport services, rather than fixing its eyes on the international competitiveness ranking of the seaports.
Yeh, a professor of business management at National Sun Yat-sen University, was the deputy minister of the Research, Development and Evaluation Commission before he was appointed to the current position. He took office last week, replacing former vice minister of transportation and communications Oliver Yu (游芳來), now chairman of Chunghwa Post. Yeh said he was assigned to supervise the execution of the Airport Zone and Free Trade Ports Zone projects, adding that they were quite a challenge.
“When Minister Mao [Mao Chi-kuo,毛治國] asked me to take the post, I pointed out that I am not an expert in transportation,” Yeh said. “But he said he wanted someone who is not a transportation expert and is able to think outside the box.”
“The relevant regulations for the International Airport Zone are now in place, so now the focus should be to attract investment and turn it into a state-run competitive corporation,” he said.
As Kaohsiung Port has dropped out of the Top 10 international port ranking, Yeh said the nation needs to disentangle itself from the myth of ranking. Kaohsiung Port used to be the world’s third-largest in terms of container throughput volume. Its ranking fell to No. 12 last year.
“The ranking only showed that the industry in Taiwan is going through a transitional stage,” Yeh said. “The nation devoted a lot of resources to the manufacturing industry. Now we should increase the added value of our seaport services. That should be key.”
Regarding Kaohsiung Port officials who were indicted for inflating the container throughput volume, Yeh said the ministry would cooperate with the legal authorities on the matter.
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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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