Bold reform is needed to deal with the long-term problem of rising food prices, IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said in a comment piece published yesterday.He wrote in the Financial Times that high food prices were “a serious humanitarian concern” and that more aid would be needed to help feed the poor, but added that “we must be bolder in tackling the long-term challenges of food supply.”
Urging global co-ordination of agricultural policy, Strauss-Kahn wrote that protectionism, the use of food crops to produce biofuels, inadequate risk mitigation and insurance and poor policy were contributing to the rising prices of food.
“We are already seeing actions at the national level, such as curbs on food exports, that have a damaging global impact,” he wrote, adding that the Doha round of international trade talks would play “a critically helpful role” in fighting off protectionism.
He described the push for biofuels as “well-intentioned, yet misguided policies in advanced economies” and said progress was needed in “catastrophe insurance and developing robust futures markets” because these could assure farmers that “if they make investments, they will reap the rewards.”
“We should consider adopting a similar philosophy to dealing with shocks — including, but not limited to, energy and food prices — at the macroeconomic level,” he wrote.
Strauss-Kahn said the IMF would “provide rapid financial support to address balance of payments needs” that arose from food price increases.
“We have a moral responsibility to get food into the hands of poor people,” he wrote.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Wednesday said that a new chip manufacturing technology called “A16” is to enter production in the second half of 2026, setting up a showdown with longtime rival Intel over who can make the fastest chips. TSMC, the world’s biggest contract manufacturer of advanced computing chips and a key supplier to Nvidia and Apple, announced the news at a conference in Santa Clara, California, where TSMC executives said that makers of artificial intelligence (AI) chips will likely be the first adopters of the technology rather than a smartphone maker. Analysts said that the technologies announced on
A total of 41 US military personnel were stationed in Taiwan as of December last year, a US congressional report said on Friday last week ahead of Tuesday’s passage of an aid package that included US$8 billion for Taiwan. The Congressional Research Service in a report titled Taiwan Defense Issues for Congress said that according to the US Department of Defense’s Defense Manpower Data Center, 41 US military personnel were assigned for duty in Taiwan. Although the normalization of relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1979 included a vow to withdraw a military presence from Taiwan, “observers have indicated
NO RECIPROCITY: Taipei has called for cross-strait group travel to resume fully, but Beijing is only allowing people from its Fujian Province to travel to Matsu, the MAC said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday criticized an announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism that it would lift a travel ban to Taiwan only for residents of China’s Fujian Province, saying that the policy does not meet the principles of reciprocity and openness. Chinese Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Rao Quan (饒權) yesterday morning told a delegation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers in a meeting in Beijing that the ministry would first allow Fujian residents to visit Lienchiang County (Matsu), adding that they would be able to travel to Taiwan proper directly once express ferry
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