Taiwan will seek inclusion of 5,824 industrial products on a list for tariff reductions during talks with China on trade in merchandise that are scheduled to start in March next year, an economics official said yesterday.
The Legislative Yuan approved late on Tuesday the controversial Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) Taiwan signed with China in June.
The two sides will initiate negotiations on investment agreements and are expected to start further talks on agreements involving trade in products, trade in services and the establishment of a dispute resolution mechanism by the end of March, as stipulated in the ECFA, the official said.
After the amendments clear the legislature, commodity trade negotiations between Taiwan and China will focus on certain types of products that are given eight-digit numeric codes by the Directorate General of Customs, he said.
These include petrochemical and machinery tools, and automobiles and flat panel display products. There are 8,726 items with the eight-digit codes. Of them, 2,902 items are set to enjoy tariff exemptions under the ECFA’s terms from Jan. 1, leaving 5,824 such products for the next talks, the official said.
According to customs data, Taiwan’s total exports to China of the 539 early harvest items amounted to US$13.84 billion last year, representing 16.1 percent of Taiwan’s total cross-strait exports by value.
Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Monday introduced the company’s latest supercomputer platform, featuring six new chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), saying that it is now “in full production.” “If Vera Rubin is going to be in time for this year, it must be in production by now, and so, today I can tell you that Vera Rubin is in full production,” Huang said during his keynote speech at CES in Las Vegas. The rollout of six concurrent chips for Vera Rubin — the company’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) computing platform — marks a strategic
Enhanced tax credits that have helped reduce the cost of health insurance for the vast majority of US Affordable Care Act enrollees expired on Jan.1, cementing higher health costs for millions of Americans at the start of the new year. Democrats forced a 43-day US government shutdown over the issue. Moderate Republicans called for a solution to save their political aspirations this year. US President Donald Trump floated a way out, only to back off after conservative backlash. In the end, no one’s efforts were enough to save the subsidies before their expiration date. A US House of Representatives vote
REVENUE PERFORMANCE: Cloud and network products, and electronic components saw strong increases, while smart consumer electronics and computing products fell Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday posted 26.51 percent quarterly growth in revenue for last quarter to NT$2.6 trillion (US$82.44 billion), the strongest on record for the period and above expectations, but the company forecast a slight revenue dip this quarter due to seasonal factors. On an annual basis, revenue last quarter grew 22.07 percent, the company said. Analysts on average estimated about NT$2.4 trillion increase. Hon Hai, which assembles servers for Nvidia Corp and iPhones for Apple Inc, is expanding its capacity in the US, adding artificial intelligence (AI) server production in Wisconsin and Texas, where it operates established campuses. This
US President Donald Trump on Friday blocked US photonics firm HieFo Corp’s US$3 million acquisition of assets in New Jersey-based aerospace and defense specialist Emcore Corp, citing national security and China-related concerns. In an order released by the White House, Trump said HieFo was “controlled by a citizen of the People’s Republic of China” and that its 2024 acquisition of Emcore’s businesses led the US president to believe that it might “take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.” The order did not name the person or detail Trump’s concerns. “The Transaction is hereby prohibited,”