Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) said yesterday that recent movements in various indicators showed that Taiwan’s economy will be strong this year.
Addressing the opening ceremony of a job fair in Taipei, Shih expressed confidence that Taiwan’s economy has recovered and employment is rising.
“Taiwan’s economy should be strong this year,” Shih said, citing many economic indicators.
FORECASTS
Shih said the IMF expected Taiwan to achieve GDP growth of 6.5 percent this year, and the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) has forecast the economy to grow by at least 5 percent.
If those forecasts prove correct, Taiwan’s economic growth will outpace that of the other Asian Tigers — Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore — Shih added.
In addition, Shih said the value of export orders and industrial production both set a new high last month, indicating that Taiwan’s economy is growing at a fast pace, which will contribute to increasing jobs in the private sector.
A total of 507 companies participated in the job fair organized by the Ministry of Economic Affairs for enterprises in northern Taiwan, where more than 35,000 jobs were offered.
Taiwan’s unemployment rate dropped last month to 5.67 percent, down 0.09 percentage points from the previous month, with the unemployed total at 624,000, down 10,000.
EARLY HARVEST
Separately, Shih said that Taiwan and China were likely to complete an “early harvest list” in the fourth round of bilateral talks on a cross-strait economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA).
“Taiwan and China will be able to fix the major items to be included on the list in their third-round talks, which may take place in late April or early May,” Shih told reporters.
“Therefore, the two sides are expected to settle the ‘early harvest list’ in the fourth talks, and it could be published if both sides agree to do so,” he added.
The “early harvest list” is a list of items that would enjoy an immediate reduction or elimination of tariffs after (and if) an ECFA is signed.
The priority tax cut list is the centerpiece of the agreement, which the government says will help Taiwan avoid marginalization amid increasingly integrated trade in the region.
Shih said the machinery, textile, petrochemical and transportation industries, as well as a few categories of information-related products, will be included on the “early harvest list” to be put forth by his ministry.
“One thing is for sure, Taiwan’s ‘early harvest list’ will be more comprehensive than China’s,” he added.
This means that the number of items and their total export value will certainly be higher than China’s because of the difference in the size of the two markets, 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
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),
The US Department of Commerce last week ordered multiple chip equipment companies to halt shipments of certain tools to China’s second-largest chipmaker, Hua Hong Semiconductor Ltd (華虹半導體), its latest action to slow the country’s development of advanced chips, two people familiar with the matter said. The department sent letters to at least a handful of companies informing them of restrictions on tools and other materials destined for two Hua Hong facilities US officials believe make China’s most sophisticated chips, the people said. Top US chip equipment companies Lam Research Corp, Applied Materials Inc and KLA Corp, each of which has significant
RSS