The National Development Council (NDC) will not serve a “caretaker” role, new council Minister Woody Duh (杜紫軍) said at a handover ceremony yesterday, adding that he will lead the NDC as it continues to push major policies for national development.
Duh, former minister of economic affairs and minister without portfolio, said he was asked by Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) to take the position on Thursday night last week.
While initially declining the offer, Duh was later persuaded by the premier, he added.
“He [Mao] told me that he could not find a suitable person to take the post and asked me to act for the greater good for the country. I could not really say no to him,” Duh said.
Duh said he would do his best to keep pushing the progress of major policies, including a draft bill regarding the establishment of free economic pilot zones.
However, he said he would not spend too much time on pushing the legislative procedures of the draft if there are related issues that have not reached a consensus among legislators.
Duh said he would instead focus on communicating with the public and listening to public opinion about the draft bill to see whether there is anything the government should amend in the bill.
“We will not give up on the draft bill, but we will adjust the way we do things,” he said.
As the council bears the responsibility to map out development plans for the nation, Duh said: “We will spare no effort in our duties, regardless which political party rules the nation.”
Former council minister Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) believes Duh will lead the council well.
“I feel relieved to hand over the affairs to Duh because I know they are in good hands,” Kuan said at the ceremony.
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
NO SHORTCUTS: Asked about Elon Musk’s Terafab initiative, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said it takes two to three years to build a fab and another one to two to ramp it up Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its revenue growth forecast for this year to above 30 percent, up from the 25 percent it estimated three months earlier, citing extremely robust artificial intelligence (AI)-related chip demand. “Our customers and customers’ customers, who are mainly cloud service providers, continue to send us very positive signals and outlook,” TSMC chairman and CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at an earnings conference. The company also hiked its capital expenditure for this year toward the higher end of its forecast, or US$56 billion, as it aims to step up advanced chip capacity expansions, such as
RSS