Due to weak market demand amid a sluggish economic climate in Taiwan, local carmakers and sales agents are cautious on the domestic market this year, predicting new cars sales in the country to hovering between 400,000 and 420,000 vehicles.
China Motor Corp (中華汽車), the local manufacturer of Mitsubishi models, and Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車), the domestic maker of Nissan vehicles, have both recently predicted that domestic demand for new cars will be around 400,000, attributing their conservative view to a tough financial climate, continued bickering among different political parties over the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant (核四), and trade quota retrenchment after Taiwan's impending accession to the World Trade Organization.
In addition, Hotai Motor Co (
New car sales in Taiwan, which peaked at 573,000 vehicles in 1993, has since been in a steady decline and dropped to 420,000 in 2000, according to government statistics.
Hotai set its sales target for the year at 93,000 cars, Chen said. To ensure it makes this target, the company is scheduled to launch the Taiwan-made Toyota Corolla vehicles in March.
Su Tsun-hsing (蘇純興), Hotai's vice general manager, said the Corolla-brand passenger cars have topped the list in sales profits in Japan's automobile market for the last 32 straight years and has been the best-selling imported automobile in Taiwan since it was first imported from the US in 1989.
Su said the locally manufactured Corolla will be formally promoted on the market on March 9. He said the company expects to sell more than 30,000 new made-in-Taiwan Corollas per month. Meanwhile, the company will raise the price of the Corolla from NT$500,000 (US$15,000) to NT$700,000 (US$21,800).
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)