Former National Science Council minister Cyrus Chu (朱敬一) on Saturday urged the government to establish a more precise industrial policy to improve Taiwan’s economic competitiveness.
The current challenges of unemployment and low wages for the younger generation are a result of Taiwan’s unsuccessful economic transformation, Chu said.
The nation’s economy is not driven enough by creativity or skill, which makes it difficult to have an edge over China or Southeast Asian countries, Chu said.
Start-ups that encourage innovation and create patents should be the focus of industrial policy, as research shows that every start-up creates seven job opportunities on average, Chu said.
The establishment of factories and facilities that generate prototypes is also necessary to support such an economic model, he said.
However, Chu expressed concern over Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) saying that it would set aside NT$10 billion (US$316 million) for Taiwanese entrepreneurs to start and develop businesses through Alibaba marketplaces and platforms.
Businesspeople who are interested should take into consideration the intentions of Alibaba, Chu said, raising concerns as to whether Taiwanese entrepreneurs would fall under Alibaba’s control through the project.
The Investment Commission on Friday also said that Chinese investors are not allowed to control their venture capital businesses in Taiwan.
Commission acting executive secretary Emile Chang (張銘斌) said that the nation’s venture capital sector is open to Chinese investors, but the investors cannot own a controlling stake in their ventures in Taiwan.
Even if their ventures invest in other businesses, those investments would have to be reviewed by the commission, Chang said, after Alibaba’s funding pledge generated public misgivings about the Chinese company’s intention to lure promising start-ups from Taiwan.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained