Taiwan’s ban on US beef imports containing the livestock leanness-enhancing agent ractopamine has a deep impact on how the nation would fare in future regional trade talks, especially high-level trade talks with the US, Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) said yesterday.
Shih made the statement after he came back from the APEC Meeting of Ministers Responsible for Trade held earlier this week, where he met US Trade Representative Ron Kirk and his deputy, Demetrios Marantis.
With many trade negotiations and economic cooperations going on in the Asia-Pacific region and around the globe, Taiwan must actively push for greater participation in such regional cooperation and integration to improve its economy and competitiveness, Shih said.
Speaking of the APEC meeting, Shih said ASEAN members had suggested extending the regional bloc by including countries that have signed free-trade agreements with ASEAN and form the ASEAN Framework for Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is also stepping up its integration and Russia is pushing for the expansion of the Eurasian Economic Union, which so far only consists of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, Shih said, adding that Taiwan would be marginalized if it were left out of these international trade talks.
“The US plays a key role on whether Taiwan will be successful in expanding its participation in international economic cooperation,” he said.
However, the message he got from his meeting with Kirk was that the US would not resume high-level trade talks with Taiwan under the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) if the US beef issue remained unresolved.
“Resuming talks with the US under the framework of TIFA should be a priority for both sides,” Shih said, adding that with so much that needs to be done, it is not worth stalling over one issue.
At yesterday’s press conference to highlight the progress of the country’s bilateral trade talks, Shih said Taiwan is currently engaged in bilateral trade talks with Singapore, New Zealand and Japan.
The government would also expedite negotiations with China under the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), the minister added.
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
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
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts