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NSC tones down proposals
BACKING OFF:
Legislators attacked plans by the NSC to regulate workers in high-tech industries who want to work in China, forcing the council to water them down
By Chiu Yu-Tzu
STAFF REPORTER
Tuesday, Apr 30, 2002, Page 2
The National Science Council (NSC) has watered down proposals to regulate high-tech professionals who want to work in China, a council official indicated yesterday.
The NSC's draft regulations, released on April 17, originally covered research and development experts and professionals working in the military, semiconductor fabrication and manufacturing, aviation, shipbuilding and anesthetic production.
But the draft has drawn opposition from industry and legislators.
At a meeting held by the Technology and Information Committee yesterday, legislators criticized the NSC's intention to regulate high-tech professionals from a wide range of industries.
PFP Legislator Pang Chien-kuo (龐建國) said that the regulation would not only weaken the development of industry in Taiwan but also create a negative image of Taiwan internationally.
"From the perspective of the global economy, Taiwan can hardly exclude the markets of China," Pang said.
NSC officials said that the draft had been slightly changed after discussions with industry representatives last week.
"We will only regulate R&D professionals specializing in the lithography of wafer fabrication," NSC Vice Chairman Huang Wen-hsiung (黃文雄) said.
A source in the semiconductor industry told the Taipei Times that the regulation seemed unrealistic and easy to sidestep.
"We can play around with the words used in professionals' profiles to avoid mentioning their familiarity with lithography," said the source from a leading chipmaker in Taiwan, who declined to be identified.
The source said the government was wrong to try to regulate high-tech professionals who want to work in China.
The NSC is expected to send the draft to the Cabinet for approval with another draft of the "national technology protection law" (國家科技保護法) today.
Based on article 11 of the proposed law, Huang said, any person who exports technologies developed by private companies or institutes financed by the government would face up to two years in prison or a NT$10 million fine.
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