Taiwan is expected to sign a proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China in the middle of next year, when top negotiators from both sides hold the fifth round of talks, Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Francis Liang (梁國新) said yesterday.
As both sides have completed separate and joint studies on the possible economic impact of the agreement, an ECFA would be included as one of the discussion topics in the fourth round of cross-strait meeting late this month, Liang told the European Chamber of Commerce in Taipei yesterday.
After that, formal negotiations will begin next month, he said.
Both sides hope to sign the agreement by the middle of next year, when the fifth round of cross-strait talks between Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait is held, Liang said.
“An ECFA is not only for Taiwan and China, it is Taiwan’s global strategy to work with our major trade partners,” Liang said, adding that these key parties include the EU, Singapore and Japan.
He said the agreement would benefit not only Taiwanese industries, but also foreign investors operating here.
The signing would normalize cross-strait relations and build a more transparent and predictable economic climate, which would benefit foreign investors, he said.
Citing studies, he said an ECFA would increase Taiwan’s GDP by as much as 1.72 percent, exports by 4.99 percent and imports by 7.07 percent.
From January 2007 through August, China was Taiwan’s biggest export market, accounting for 40 percent of total exports at US$627 billion, while the US took up 12.4 percent and the EU 10.8 percent.
Deepening economic ties between the two sides has become necessary to remedy Taiwan’s marginalized position in Asia, he said.
“Lots of free-trade agreements [FTAs] are happening in Asia, but we can’t participate,” Liang said, adding that an ECFA would help Taiwan mitigate the impact of FTAs between ASEAN countries and China.
To date, Taiwan has signed FTAs with five Central American countries with which it has diplomatic ties.
It has yet to sign an FTA with major trading partners in Asia, Europe and North America.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six