Taiwan could next year face its most serious drought in the past decade, as this year’s precipitation has been much less than expected, Minister of Economic Affairs Woody Duh (杜紫軍) said yesterday.
“The nation has entered the period of low water levels more quickly than expected this year,” Duh said during a meeting of the Economics Committee at the legislature in Taipei.
The ministry has ordered the Water Resources Agency to address the possible drought conditions in several areas, including Banciao District (板橋) and Sinjhuang District (新莊) in New Taipei City, Hsinchu County, Miaoli County, Greater Taichung, Greater Tainan, Greater Kaohsiung and Penghu County, he said.
The agency has adjusted the water resources monitoring indicator for these areas from a “blue” light to a “green” light, indicating that water-storage levels are below normal.
The condition follows unexpectedly low rainfall from Tropical Storm Fung-Wong (鳳凰) in September and lower precipitation over the past few months, agency official Lai Chien-hsin (賴建信) said.
Agency Director-General Yang Wei-fu (楊偉甫) said water supplies for household consumption would remain stable in reservoirs until the end of this year, but agricultural consumers already face rationing. The Shihmen Reservoir (石門水庫) in Taoyuan County now provides just 75 percent of its storage for agricultural use, he added.
Lai said the agency has planned a meeting next month to address water-supply issues, adding that further rationing to consumers is not out of the question.
Separately, Duh told reporters on the sidelines of the committee meeting that signing free-trade agreements with other countries is not the “cure” for a nation’s economy, but the deals certainly help boost economic growth and elevate competitiveness for local industries.
Duh said that if the nation fails to sign new trade pacts, Taiwan’s large enterprises would end up leaving for other countries to seek investments, which would reduce domestic job opportunities.
“Fewer job opportunities will consequently damage Taiwan’s low-wage job environment,” Duh said, adding that if the government helps remove foreign tariff barriers for domestic companies, those firms would stay and create more job opportunities for young adults.
He said the nation must speed up negotiations on the cross-strait trade in goods agreement with China to lessen the negative impact of the new trade deal between Beijing and Seoul, once it takes effect in the near term.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Taiwan has enough crude oil reserves for more than 100 days and sufficient natural gas reserves for more than 11 days, both above the regulatory safety requirement, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday, adding that the government would prioritize domestic price stability as conflicts in the Middle East continue. Overall, energy supply for this month is secure, and the government is continuing efforts to ensure sufficient supply for next month, Kung told reporters after meeting with representatives from business groups at the ministry in Taipei. The ministry has been holding daily cross-ministry meetings at the Executive Yuan to ensure
RATIONING: The proposal would give the Trump administration ample leverage to negotiate investments in the US as it decides how many chips to give each country US officials are debating a new regulatory framework for exporting artificial intelligence (AI) chips and are considering requiring foreign nations to invest in US AI data centers or security guarantees as a condition for granting exports of 200,000 chips or more, according to a document seen by Reuters. The rules are not yet final and could change. They would be the first attempt to regulate the flow of AI chips to US allies and partners since US President Donald Trump’s administration said it rescinded its predecessor’s so-called AI diffusion rules. Those rules sought to keep a significant amount of AI
A new worry has been rippling across the stock market lately: Entire businesses, not just their employees, might be thrown out of work. While most economists say fears of an artificial intelligence (AI) job apocalypse are overblown, seismic shifts have happened in the past after big tech breakthroughs. The IT revolution of the 1990s led to a surge in productivity that sped up the US economy for several years. It also rendered companies or even industries largely redundant — from travel agents and stockbrokers to classified advertising and newspapers, or video rental stores. Economists expect AI would deliver higher productivity,
RSS