Seeking to encourage greater private foreign investment, the government will select seven industry sectors in which Taiwan has a competitive edge globally at three conferences next month, an official said.
Minister of Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) Christina Liu (劉憶如) said medical care services for the international market, the digital content industry and local gourmet foods were likely candidates for the “flagship industries” list.
The seven sectors will be drawn from suggestions made by government departments, which have until next Tuesday to make their proposals, Liu said, adding that the sectors would be chosen to coincide with trade shows around the country.
Liu said the three private investor conferences would be held on Aug. 23, Aug. 27 and Aug. 30 in Taipei City, Taichung City, and Kaohsiung City.
The focus will be on items covered in the “i-Taiwan 12 Infrastructure Projects,” such as urban renewal, transportation and harbor construction and environmental protection facilities; the “Six Emerging Industries,” such as green energy, biotech and tourism; the “Four Key Strategic Industries,” such as green building and cloud computing; and the “Ten major service industries,” Liu said.
President Ma Ying-jeou asked the CEPD to establish a commission led by Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) to promote Taiwan as an international investment center, with the aim of attracting investment of NT$1.8 trillion (US$56 billion) over six years.
The proposal was approved during a Cabinet meeting yesterday.
Meanwhile, the Cabinet meeting approved an action plan drafted by the Industrial Development Bureau of the Ministry of Economic Affairs to encourage NT$100 billion of investment in the digital content sector over four years, with the aim of creating 315,000 jobs.
Aside from encouraging local firms to develop digital games, animation designs and multimedia products, the government will also help companies seek cooperation opportunities with companies in Japan and the US, bureau director general Woody Duh (杜紫軍) said.
In related news, the Cabinet meeting also approved an amendment to the Tobacco and Liquor Tax Law (菸酒稅法) stipulating that red label rice wine would be treated as cooking wine rather than distilled liquor. If successful, the price per bottle would drop to NT$25 from NT$58.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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