The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it would have a plan within a month to help domestic LED makers weather the -industry-wide downturn and fend off competition from Chinese and South Korean rivals.
Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) told reporters that he had discussed issues relating to LED standards, the protection of intellectual property rights and the exploration of overseas markets, such as China, during meetings yesterday with local LED makers, including Everlight Electronics Co (億光), Epistar Corp (晶電) and Delta Electronics Inc (台達電).
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The ministry said it plans to spend more than NT$500 million (US$16.6 million) on LED subsidies next year, up from the NT$170 million that was used this year to install LED lamp posts in rural areas and replace traditional bulbs with LED lights in government offices.
LED manufacturers, who recently saw orders shrink in the wake of the slowing global economy, have called on the government to subsidize consumer purchases of LED lightbulbs in an effort to replace less energy efficient bulbs.
BAD IDEA
One suggestion called for the government to pay 50 percent of the cost of each energy-efficient LED bulb used to replace an inefficient incandescent bulb — a proposal the ministry has said would incur “staggering costs.”
According to a ministry statement, it instead said Taiwanese makers should introduce products with higher added value, increase the quality and stability of their LED products and reduce reliance on orders from South Korea to cope with rising market competition.
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