The European Chamber of Commerce Taipei (ECCT) said yesterday the government promised to consider further easing rules on various sectors after responding positively to several issues the trade group has raised in its position papers.
Officials from the Council for Economic Planning and Development and other agencies had a meeting with the ECCT on Tuesday and agreed to hold more talks to address unresolved issues, including lower legal barriers for imports from China and cross-strait banking ties, the chamber said in a statement.
“There is a lot that still needs to be done, but we made good progress on a number of important issues,” ECCT chairman Chris James said.
Government agencies agreed to arrange follow-up meetings with the ECCT to facilitate the proposed deregulation measures, James said.
The ECCT has pressed Taiwan to ease some import bans on products from China and the Ministry of Economic Affairs agreed to allow the importation of items on the chamber’s priority list on a case-by-case basis, the statement said, adding those items are mostly engineering and electrical equipment.
The chamber lauded the government for allowing imports of garments from China, its acceptance of EU smoke-test standards and streamlining Taiwanese patients’ access to innovative drugs.
The ECCT also welcomed the government’s efforts to promote Taiwan as an offshore yuan market, after allowing domestic lenders’ offshore banking units to engage in yuan businesses.
ECCT vice chairman Olivier Rousselet has suggested extending the license to domestic banking units if Taiwan is serious about being a financial hub in the region. The Financial Supervisory Commission is considering easing restrictions on cross-strait wealth management service flows.
The commission is also expected to relax rules within six months so that securities investment trust companies may concurrently provide consulting services for professional investors, the chamber said.
“We hope to see real progress on a number of these issues,” James said, adding follow-up meetings would be held in the weeks ahead.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last