Fifty-three hospitals, hotels and department stores with a total of 166 locations signed an energy-saving agreement yesterday to reduce their contribution to carbon dioxide emissions, pledging to cut electricity consumption by 5 percent within three years.
Bureau of Energy statistics indicated that the joint effort would help save 130 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and put NT$1.04 billion into the market for products that conserve energy.
In addition, the efforts should cut carbon dioxide emissions by 83,000 tonnes, which is equivalent to building 224 Da-an Forest parks, the bureau’s report showed.
“Although South Korea has implemented coercive measures to enforce energy conservation, our government believes that saving energy is a universal value and will gain public support. As a result, we have decided to begin with voluntary energy conservation measures,” Minister of Economic Affairs Yiin Chii-ming (尹啟銘) said at a press conference yesterday.
Yiin said that the ministry hoped to reduce the growth of carbon dioxide emissions, putting emissions in 2020 at this year’s level and cutting emissions to their level in 2000 by 2025.
Electricity consumption in the service sector has gone up by 3.9 percent annually on average over the past five years, the statistics showed.
Electricity consumption in relation to floor space at hospitals, hotels and department stores is between 1.2 times and 2.1 times higher than that of normal office buildings, the report said.
Sean Chuang (莊秀石), chairman of the Taiwan Tourist Hotel Association (中華民國觀光旅館商業同業公會), said yesterday that energy conservation was almost impossible for the hospitality industry — especially for five-star hotels — as many measures would be considered disrespectful to hotel guests. However, hotels can start with replacing automatic doors with revolving doors, using energy-saving lights bulbs and planting trees.
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A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
STILL UNCLEAR: Several aspects of the policy still need to be clarified, such as whether the exemptions would expand to related products, PwC Taiwan warned The TAIEX surged yesterday, led by gains in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), after US President Donald Trump announced a sweeping 100 percent tariff on imported semiconductors — while exempting companies operating or building plants in the US, which includes TSMC. The benchmark index jumped 556.41 points, or 2.37 percent, to close at 24,003.77, breaching the 24,000-point level and hitting its highest close this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data showed. TSMC rose NT$55, or 4.89 percent, to close at a record NT$1,180, as the company is already investing heavily in a multibillion-dollar plant in Arizona that led investors to assume
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