US beef imports this year might increase 25 percent to NT$15 billion (US$511.9 million), after recording a 20 percent gain last year, as Taiwan outpaces other Asian markets in terms of value per kilogram, US Meat Export Federation director Davis Wu (吳秋衡) said on Wednesday last week.
However, growing inflation pressure and protectionism might weigh on demand, Wu added.
Taiwan bought 38,000 tonnes of US beef valued at NT$12 billion last year, a 20 percent increase from 2016, beating Singapore, Japan, South Korea, China and other Asian markets in value per kilogram, Wu said.
The pickup came despite the government’s lifting last year of a 14-year ban on beef imports from Japan, Sweden and the Netherlands. Local dinning facilities have since highlighted the addition of Japanese beef, especially wagyu, to their menus.
“Taiwanese are more receptive to beef of higher quality grades, compared with diners in Japan, South Korea and elsewhere in Asia, accounting for the relatively high proportion of prime and choice beef imports,” Wu told a media briefing in Taipei.
US beef constitutes 40 percent of local consumption, outperforming other places of origin, Wu said.
The trade federation is seeking to increase US beef consumption in Taiwan by launching the “Diamond Plus Precious” certification intended to encourage local restaurants to use US beef.
The reference book, which is to be published in August, would name the 20 best local restaurants that serve US beef at a price of NT$500 to NT$600, Wu said.
More expensive meals are not affordable for average diners and delicious dishes are not necessarily expensive, said Wu, who spent the past six months grading more than 120 restaurants across Taiwan.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to