Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) Chairwoman Christina Liu (劉憶如) visited Minister of Finance Lee Sush-der (李述德) last night to discuss how the government could integrate public and private capital to invest in public construction projects.
Lee told reporters that they also exchanged ideas on major financial plans for public construction, public funds allocation and the arrangement of special budgets for projects.
Liu’s visit to the minister came after her meeting with Central Bank Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) on Wednesday, when they talked about how to divert excess market liquidity into public projects and improve the still-ailing job market.
The public projects include the so-called “12 i-Taiwan infrastructure programs,” six major emerging industries, including biotechnology and green energy, as well as 10 major service industries, such as food and educational services.
Some local Chinese-language newspapers reported earlier yesterday that Liu and Perng also talked about interest-rate levels. The central bank denied this in a statement and said the issue would be discussed at its quarterly board meeting on June 24.
Liu yesterday said she hoped her recent visits to various government agencies would help the agencies reach a consensus on how to make the best use of public and private funds to promote public construction.
However, tax reduction measures to attract private investment in infrastructure projects would not be discussed at this stage, Liu said.
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