The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday came under fire from lawmakers for failing to introduce an amendment to the Mining Act (礦業法) as they began a review of proposed revisions prompted by a public outcry over the mining industry’s effect on the environment.
“Lawmakers have been talking about amending the law since February and yet the ministry failed to send an amendment. It is so lazy,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬), co-convenor of the Economics Committee, told a meeting of the Legislative Yuan committee.
Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Yang Wei-fu (楊偉甫) said the ministry’s draft amendment is undergoing a 60-day public notice and so could not be sent to the Legislative Yuan yet.
The committee is to review a bill submitted by lawmakers article-by-article today and tomorrow, including a ceiling on the amount that can be mined, the extension length of mining rights and how to retroactively impose new regulations on companies.
The lawmakers are facing mounting pressure from the public to revise the law, triggered by protests over a 20-year extension given to Asia Cement Corp’s (亞泥) mining rights in eastern Taiwan.
The revision of the act would cover the operations of more than 250 quarries, the development of the nation’s cement industry, which generates NT$27 billion (US$889 million) in annual production value, and the interests of Aborigines whose traditional territories are within the scope of the quarries.
The act also involves long-term national land planning and utilization.
DPP Legislator Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) proposed that when a company plans to apply for mining rights for a new or existing quarry, it must submit detailed plans for environmental restoration and labor placement in preparation for when it stops operations at the quarry.
The ministry should conduct strategic environmental assessments every five years to evaluate each quarry’s reserves, the supply and demand in domestic and international markets and environmental restoration efforts at quarries to provide updated information on the entire mining industry, not just cement companies, Hsiao said.
Lawmakers proposed that firms obtain approval from Aboriginal communities in accordance with Article 21 of the Indigenous Peoples Basic Law’s (原住民族基本法) when the scope of a quarry is within Aboriginal territory.
An environmental impact assessment (EIA) is to be a requirement when applying for new or extended mining rights, the draft amendments states. For firms that have already received approval, such as Asia Cement, an EIA would have to be conducted once the amendment takes effect.
If the amendment passes, companies such as Asia Cement could see the government strip them of mining rights if their operations fail to pass an EIA, Yang said.
AI TALENT: No financial details were released about the deal, in which top Groq executives, including its CEO, would join Nvidia to help advance the technology Nvidia Corp has agreed to a licensing deal with artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Groq, furthering its investments in companies connected to the AI boom and gaining the right to add a new type of technology to its products. The world’s largest publicly traded company has paid for the right to use Groq’s technology and is to integrate its chip design into future products. Some of the start-up’s executives are leaving to join Nvidia to help with that effort, the companies said. Groq would continue as an independent company with a new chief executive, it said on Wednesday in a post on its Web
RESPONSE: The Japanese Ministry of Finance might have to intervene in the currency markets should the yen keep weakening toward the 160 level against the US dollar Japan’s chief currency official yesterday sent a warning on recent foreign exchange moves, after the yen weakened against the US dollar following Friday last week’s Bank of Japan (BOJ) decision. “We’re seeing one-directional, sudden moves especially after last week’s monetary policy meeting, so I’m deeply concerned,” Japanese Vice Finance Minister for International Affairs Atsushi Mimura told reporters. “We’d like to take appropriate responses against excessive moves.” The central bank on Friday raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest in 30 years, but Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda chose to keep his options open rather than bolster the yen,
Even as the US is embarked on a bitter rivalry with China over the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI), Chinese technology is quietly making inroads into the US market. Despite considerable geopolitical tensions, Chinese open-source AI models are winning over a growing number of programmers and companies in the US. These are different from the closed generative AI models that have become household names — ChatGPT-maker OpenAI or Google’s Gemini — whose inner workings are fiercely protected. In contrast, “open” models offered by many Chinese rivals, from Alibaba (阿里巴巴) to DeepSeek (深度求索), allow programmers to customize parts of the software to suit their
Global server shipments are expected to surge to 15 million units next year, from 4 million units this year, with artificial intelligence (AI) servers accounting for about 30 percent, driven by massive capital spending by major cloud service providers, the Market Intelligence and Consulting Institute (MIC) said on Thursday last week. Major cloud service providers — including Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc, Microsoft Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Meta Platforms Inc — are projected to budget US$450 million for capital expenditure next year, up from US$400 million this year, MIC ICT [information and communications technology] Industry Research Center director Edward Lin
RSS