The Legislative Yuan yesterday passed approved a statute governing the development of Taoyuan International Airport Zone, which will create a free trade zone near the airport where businesses will enjoy preferential taxes and fewer labor restrictions.
The statute exempts foreign and domestic businesses that authorize companies in free trade ports to stock inventory or process materials for export from paying business income tax. If companies sell to domestic businesses, then the proportion of income exempt from tax would be 10 percent of the total amount exported.
It also stipulates that Aborigines make up at least 3 percent of the work force in companies in the free trade ports. Foreign labor would be governed by the Employment Services Act (就業服務法) and the Act for the Establishment and Management of Free Ports (自由貿易港區設置管理條例), with the exception that service sectors may not hire foreign labor or workers from China.
Since October, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications has been pushing to exempt the airport zone from labor regulations in local free trade zones — such as a minimum wage, requirements that foreign workers be limited to 40 percent of a company's work force and that Aborigines make up at least 5 percent.
The draft statute comes at a sticky timing when unemployment rates have been climbing to record highs and the number of people on unpaid leave even higher. It has also drawn criticism from labor associations, protesting that more Taiwanese would lose their jobs if the government opens up to more foreign labor.
The Taoyuan International Airport currently employs 8,000 domestic workers, but once the draft statute is passed, foreign workers could take up as much as 40 percent of the work force and 3,200 domestic workers could lose their jobs, said Mao Chen-fei (毛振飛), chairman of the Confederation of Taoyuan Trade Unions.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a