The Ministry of Economic Affairs will publish a comprehensive safety assessment report on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant before August, when a referendum is tentatively set to take place to decide the fate of the controversial plant, the nation’s top economics official said yesterday.
Minister of Economic Affairs Chang Chia-juch (張家祝) said that if the power plant failed to meet safety standards, the ministry would never allow Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) to operate it and a referendum is not needed.
“Basically, we aim to ensure that the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant can operate safely, so the purpose for holding a referendum is meaningful,” Chang said at the legislature’s Economics Committee.
In response to rising public concern about the safety of the power plant in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City (新北市), Chang reiterated that the ministry has made operational safety its top priority and is conducting various tests to safeguard the nation’s security.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) said the ministry should follow public opinion and abandon construction of the power plant immediately to reduce government expenditure.
In response, Chang said the ministry, as the supervisor of Taipower, was only implementing a project that was approved by the Executive Yuan and the legislature, adding that the ministry has no option but do its job according to schedule.
“We will let the public decide whether to operate the plant,” Chang said.
In response to another question, Chang said he could not promise lawmakers that he would step down if the consumer price index rose above 2.5 percent this year, or if electricity rates are not frozen in October.
“I only have to fulfill my duty as minister of economic affairs. I don’t have to make irresponsible promises,” he said.
Chang also said Taiwan’s talks with Singapore and New Zealand on proposed economic partnership agreements were expected to be completed by the first half of this year.
However, he did not give an exact timetable for the conclusion of the agreements, saying that Taiwan could not make a unilateral announcement because the negotiations involve other parties.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government should take steps to cut UK reliance on semiconductors from Taiwan because of the threat posed by China, a draft strategy said. Chinese interference or an invasion of Taiwan would threaten Britain’s economy, according to the unpublished strategy seen by Bloomberg. That is because it would compromise supplies to and from Taiwan, which is home to more than 90 percent of the manufacturing capacity for all leading-edge chips, including the world’s pre-eminent silicon foundry, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電). The strategy is important because semiconductors are used in everything from cellphones to cars, and shortages have
BIG SPENDERS: China’s reopening is a key ‘mega-theme’ for the sector, RBC Bank said, but it remains to be seen how much Chinese tourists will buy The European luxury sector is welcoming the end of pandemic lockdowns in China, as the return of big-spending Chinese tourists could sustain further growth. Prior to the pandemic, Chinese tourists visiting Europe were a major source of sales for luxury houses. The Chinese accounted for “a third of luxury purchases in the world and two-thirds of those purchases were made outside China”, said Joelle de Montgolfier, head of the luxury division at management consulting firm Bain & Co. Their return has led RBC Bank to revise up its growth forecast for the sector this year to 11 percent, from 7 percent previously. “China
‘IT HURTS TOO MUCH’: After talks between Blizzard and NetEase over their contract broke down, servers hosting Blizzard’s games in China were shut down Millions of Chinese gamers have lost access to World of Warcraft after a furious dispute between US title owner Activision Blizzard Inc and NetEase Inc (網易), its longtime local partner in the world’s biggest gaming market. Devotees of the popular game took to social media networks to bemoan the loss, with one posting an image of a failed connection message accompanied by crying emojis. “It really hurts my heart,” one wrote. “It hurts, it hurts too much,” another said. Massively popular worldwide, particularly in the 2000s, World of Warcraft — often abbreviated as WoW — is an online multiplayer role-playing game set in
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Tuesday accused Alphabet Inc’s Google of abusing its dominance in digital advertising, threatening to dismantle a key business at the heart of one of Silicon Valley’s most successful Internet firms. The US government said Google should be forced to sell its ad manager suite, tackling a business that generated about 12 percent of Google’s revenues in 2021, but also plays a vital role in the search engine and cloud company’s overall sales. “Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies,” the
RSS