Taiwan's legislature has approved import tariff cuts on some 5,000 items ahead of the nation's entry to the WTO, parliament officials said yesterday.
Under the approved revision of the statute of import tariffs, custom duties on more than 5,000 products would be reduced lowering the average tariff rate from 8.20 percent to 7.08 percent in the first year of Taiwan's WTO admission, the officials said.
The cuts were expected to reduce the government's tax revenues by NT$5.11 billion (US$148 million) in the first year, they said.
Taiwan is expected to become a WTO member in March.
Under the revision, average tariffs on farm products and industrial goods would be slashed to 14.01 percent and 5.78 percent, down from current 20.02 percent and 6.03 percent respectively, in the first year of Taiwan's WTO entry.
Average import duties on the items would eventually be lowered to 12.86 percent and 4.15 percent respectively by 2004.
To cushion the impact of the reductions on the farming sector, expected to be hit hardest, authorities would draw a budget of NT$100 billion every year to offer subsidies and help farmers seek other jobs, a local Chinese-language newspaper cited Cabinet secretary-general Chiou I-jen (邱義仁) as saying.
Some 27,500 farmers may lose their jobs after Taiwan's WTO admission, the paper said.
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
RSS