The 2001 Joint Conference of the ROC-USA and US-ROC Business Councils (中美工商聯合會), scheduled to be held in Boston Sept. 17 to 19, has been canceled for safety reasons in the wake of Tuesday's terror attacks in the US, sources from the US-ROC Business Council said Wednesday.
In consideration of the safety of the more than 500 government officials, lawmakers, and business and industrial heavyweights from Taiwan and the US who were scheduled to take part in the annual event, the US-ROC Business Council decided to call off the meeting after consulting with officials from the ROC-USA Business Council, said an official from the US-ROC Business Council.
Frank Carlucci, chairman of the US-ROC Business Council, said he is deeply disappointed with the development, especially after both business councils spent so much time and effort preparing for the annual conference.
Noting the seriousness of the current safety situation in the US after the deadly attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington Carlucci told his counterpart in Taipei, Wang Chung-yu (
This marks the first time ever that the annual Joint Conference of the ROC-USA and US-ROC Business Councils, an important mechanism helping foster bilateral business and industrial exchanges between the US and Taiwan, has been canceled since its inception 25 years ago.
Meanwhile, Taiwan's Minister of Economic Affairs, Lin Hsin-yi (林信義), who was previously scheduled to leave for the US Sunday to take part in a series of trade-promotion activities, was forced to cancel his plans in the wake of the apparently coordinated terrorist attacks that brought down the symbol of America's financial power and caused catastrophic damage to a portion of the building that houses the US military's nerve center.
Rainfall is expected to become more widespread and persistent across central and southern Taiwan over the next few days, with the effects of the weather patterns becoming most prominent between last night and tomorrow, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Independent meteorologist Daniel Wu (吳德榮) said that based on the latest forecast models of the combination of a low-pressure system and southwesterly winds, rainfall and flooding are expected to continue in central and southern Taiwan from today to Sunday. The CWA also warned of flash floods, thunder and lightning, and strong gusts in these areas, as well as landslides and fallen
WAITING GAME: The US has so far only offered a ‘best rate tariff,’ which officials assume is about 15 percent, the same as Japan, a person familiar with the matter said Taiwan and the US have completed “technical consultations” regarding tariffs and a finalized rate is expected to be released soon, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference yesterday, as a 90-day pause on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire today. The two countries have reached a “certain degree of consensus” on issues such as tariffs, nontariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, supply chain resilience and economic security, Lee said. They also discussed opportunities for cooperation, investment and procurement, she said. A joint statement is still being negotiated and would be released once the US government has made
SOUTH CHINA SEA? The Philippine president spoke of adding more classrooms and power plants, while skipping tensions with China over disputed areas Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday blasted “useless and crumbling” flood control projects in a state of the nation address that focused on domestic issues after a months-long feud with his vice president. Addressing a joint session of congress after days of rain that left at least 31 dead, Marcos repeated his recent warning that the nation faced a climate change-driven “new normal,” while pledging to investigate publicly funded projects that had failed. “Let’s not pretend, the people know that these projects can breed corruption. Kickbacks ... for the boys,” he said, citing houses that were “swept away” by the floods. “Someone has
‘CRUDE’: The potential countermeasure is in response to South Africa renaming Taiwan’s representative offices and the insistence that it move out of Pretoria Taiwan is considering banning exports of semiconductors to South Africa after the latter unilaterally downgraded and changed the names of Taiwan’s two representative offices, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. On Monday last week, the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation unilaterally released a statement saying that, as of April 1, the Taipei Liaison Offices in Pretoria and Cape Town had been renamed the “Taipei Commercial Office in Johannesburg” and the “Taipei Commercial Office in Cape Town.” Citing UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, it said that South Africa “recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole