A proposed trade enhancement mechanism is not expected to be discussed at this year’s trade consultations between Taiwan and the EU, which are set to open today in Brussels, according to the office of the EU Trade Commissioner.
The trade enhancement mechanism (TEM), tantamount to a free-trade agreement, was proposed by the European Chamber of Commerce in Taipei (ECCT) earlier this year.
The office, however, said yesterday that the EU would not rule out the possibility of improving its trade and investment relations with Taiwan under the existing framework.
Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Sheng-chung (林聖忠), who will head the Taiwanese delegation to the consultations, said that now is not the right time for Taiwan to propose an economic cooperation agreement with the EU.
Lin was in Brussels to attend a seminar titled “EU Trade Policy toward Asia: The Role of Taiwan” sponsored by the European Centre for International Political Economy, an independent think tank, as a prelude to the annual Taiwan-EU consultations.
He said Taiwan would propose increased bilateral cooperation in the fields of customs, quarantine inspection and e-business.
ECCT chairman Nicholas Winsor said in January that the chamber would push for a -Taiwan-EU TEM, and he urged Taiwan to work out reciprocal tariff concession measures with the EU as soon as possible.
According to the ECCT chief, South Korea has concluded a free-trade agreement with the EU that will give 96 percent of South Korea’s products shipped to the EU tariff-exempt treatment.
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained