New Industrial Development Bureau (IDB, 工業局) Director-General Shen Jung-chin (沈榮津) yesterday vowed to reshape and upgrade Taiwan’s industry and create more job opportunities.
Shen, who was formerly the head of the Export Processing Zone Administration, succeeds Woody Duh (杜紫軍) at a time when the gloomy international economic situation, including the eurozone debt crisis and China’s import contraction, has impacted Taiwanese companies.
Export orders — an indicator of exports over the next three months — declined 3.52 percent year-on-year to US$36.09 billion in April and the figures for last month are expected to continue declining year-on-year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said on May 21.
“How to enhance all the industries in the country and ramp up the engines of manufacturing and service is the crucial role that the Industrial Development Bureau has to play,” Shen said.
The bureau would push for more integration of the manufacturing and services industries, as well as “push for more technology-enabled service industry and more internationalization of the service industry, and differentiating traditional industries,” Shen said.
“The country needs to take advantage of its advanced ICT [information and communication technology] industry to upgrade its industrial structure, and promote the transformation of regional industry,” he said.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has talked up the benefits of a weaker yen in a campaign speech, adopting a tone at odds with her finance ministry, which has refused to rule out any options to counter excessive foreign exchange volatility. Takaichi later softened her stance, saying she did not have a preference for the yen’s direction. “People say the weak yen is bad right now, but for export industries, it’s a major opportunity,” Takaichi said on Saturday at a rally for Liberal Democratic Party candidate Daishiro Yamagiwa in Kanagawa Prefecture ahead of a snap election on Sunday. “Whether it’s selling food or
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