Minister of Economic Affairs John Deng (鄧振中) yesterday warned about the impact of a free-trade agreement (FTA) between China and South Korea, while expressing hope that the cross-strait trade in goods agreement can make major progress in the near future.
The South Korean parliament ratified the FTA with China on Monday, with both nations agreeing to implement it at the end of the year, while Deng said that the latest, 12th, round of cross-strait talks on the trade in goods agreement failed to make any major progress late last month.
Deng said he hoped there could be a major breakthrough in the trade in goods agreement negotiations, but added that this would not depend on Taiwan alone, as it would also be down to China’s attitude and whether the two sides can reach a consensus on the items to be included.
Deng made the remarks at a seminar on the impact and challenges on the nation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP is a trade bloc initiated by the US that will account for about one-third of global trade.
According to an analysis of the tariff cuts to be created by the China-South Korea FTA, among South Korea’s exports of 8,194 agricultural and industrial products to China, 20.12 percent would have their tariffs immediately cut to zero — mainly petrochemicals, textiles and garments, glass, healthcare equipment and plastic-processing machinery.
Five years after the agreement comes into effect, the number of zero-tariff items would have increased to 40.6 percent, it said.
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],”
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
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