The government faces competition from South Korea when helping local businesses secure infrastructure contracts in Southeast Asian nations as it pushes the New Southbound Policy, a source familiar with the matter said yesterday.
The source, who requested anonymity, said that South Korea has been “ambitiously” preparing plans to win infrastructure construction bids in Southeast Asia for a long time.
Nonetheless, the government has managed to help Taiwanese enterprises land opportunities in Vietnam, the source said, adding that would to soon initiate talks for local corporations to undertake infrastructure construction projects.
India and Myanmar also have plenty of opportunities for Taiwanese companies to build public works, the source said.
Indonesia, which comprises more than 170,000 islands, is seeking to upgrade its shipbuilding industry and has expressed its willingness to collaborate with Taiwanese shipbuilders, the source said.
Meanwhile, Minister Without Portfolio John Deng (鄧振中), who oversees implementation of the southbound policy, said that even though the nation faces competition from China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative, the New Southbound Policy would proceed as intended.
“They do their thing and we will do ours,” Deng said.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Thursday during a meeting about the nation’s foreign economy and trade policies said that her administration would create a strategic financing mechanism for the southbound initiative, for which it would initially earmark US$3.5 billion.
The mechanism is to be used to expand collaboration with the nation’s diplomatic allies and help local businesses when bidding for infrastructure projects overseas, Tsai said.
The financing quota set by Tsai could be increased if the need arises, Deng said.
Local enterprises mainly look for opportunities to build harbors, roads and bridges, but other public works could also be profitable, he said.
He cited as an example CTCI Corp’s foray into power plant construction in the region, which he said has gone well.
However, CTCI landed those deals on its own, while the government aims to help local businesses land deals by opening up frontiers for them, Deng said.
A high-ranking official said that public works construction has an estimated market value of NT$8 trillion (US$265.3 billion), and that it would be impossible for Taiwanese firms to monopolize that sum.
Taiwanese businesses can only take a share of the profit and the government is determined to provide them with the necessary funds to do so, the official said.
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
Travel agencies in Taiwan are working to secure alternative flights for travelers bound for New Zealand for the Lunar New Year holiday, as Air New Zealand workers are set to strike next week. The airline said that it has confirmed that the planned industrial action by its international wide-body cabin crew would go ahead on Thursday and Friday next week. While the Auckland-based carrier pledged to take reasonable measures to mitigate the impact of the workers’ strike, an Air New Zealand flight arriving at Taipei from Auckland on Thursday and another flight departing from Taipei for Auckland on Saturday would have to
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS