Taiwan will seek inclusion of 5,824 industrial products on a list for tariff reductions during talks with China on trade in merchandise that are scheduled to start in March next year, an economics official said yesterday.
The Legislative Yuan approved late on Tuesday the controversial Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) Taiwan signed with China in June.
The two sides will initiate negotiations on investment agreements and are expected to start further talks on agreements involving trade in products, trade in services and the establishment of a dispute resolution mechanism by the end of March, as stipulated in the ECFA, the official said.
After the amendments clear the legislature, commodity trade negotiations between Taiwan and China will focus on certain types of products that are given eight-digit numeric codes by the Directorate General of Customs, he said.
These include petrochemical and machinery tools, and automobiles and flat panel display products. There are 8,726 items with the eight-digit codes. Of them, 2,902 items are set to enjoy tariff exemptions under the ECFA’s terms from Jan. 1, leaving 5,824 such products for the next talks, the official said.
According to customs data, Taiwan’s total exports to China of the 539 early harvest items amounted to US$13.84 billion last year, representing 16.1 percent of Taiwan’s total cross-strait exports by value.
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],”
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
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