Taiwan should open up to direct investment from China to facilitate the nation’s economic development, because China has accumulated a large amount of capital, Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) Minister Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) said at a conference yesterday.
“China is like a small tiger or dragon that grew into a big one, and I think it is time for us to reconsider how we can utilize China’s muscle,” Kuan said in a panel discussion in an economic conference co-hosted by the Financial Times and Standard Chartered Bank yesterday.
However, Kuan said that China’s economic “bubble” could still burst.
The Chinese government is unable to curb rising housing prices, and Taiwan should diversify its export destinations to include emerging markets in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, he said.
Kuan said China was also experiencing many other problems, which were covered up by government policies, and its economy might stumble if these hidden problems are uncovered.
Kuan said that the opening up of Taiwan’s planned free economic pilot zones to Chinese agricultural products was a trend the Taiwan cannot avoid, but he emphasized that all agricultural products entering the zones would be re-exported.
He made the remarks to ease public concerns that the entry of Chinese agricultural products into the planned zones could eventually open doors to Chinese products going on local market and hurt local producers.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
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
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