Outgoing Minister of Economic Affairs John Deng (鄧振中) yesterday said he hopes Minister of economic affairs-designate Lee Chih-kung (李世光) will help increase competitiveness in local industries and boost exports.
“The declining international demand for Taiwan’s goods was one of the obstacles during my term,” Deng said after a farewell party for him and Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Bill Cho (卓士昭), who retired yesterday after 37 years.
Deng said he believes Lee and Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) would help local industries to upgrade and transform their operations amid the uncertain outlook of the global economy. It is also important for the new government to communicate more with industries and provide a stable investment environment in Taiwan.
During Deng’s more than one-year term, the ministry proposed the Statute for Industrial Innovation (產業創新條例) and amended the Company Act (公司法) to help the development of business start-ups.
The ministry also amended the Water Act and introduced a new electricity price formula to ease political interference, but it has failed to continue the negotiations of a trade-in-goods agreement with China and allowed Chinese investments in local IC design companies during Deng’s term.
The issues of the cross-strait trade in goods pact and the Chinese investments in local IC designers are to be left to Lee and the public, Deng said.
Sweeping policy changes under US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr are having a chilling effect on vaccine makers as anti-vaccine rhetoric has turned into concrete changes in inoculation schedules and recommendations, investors and executives said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has in the past year upended vaccine recommendations, with the country last month ending its longstanding guidance that all children receive inoculations against flu, hepatitis A and other diseases. The unprecedented changes have led to diminished vaccine usage, hurt the investment case for some biotechs, and created a drag that would likely dent revenues and
Global semiconductor stocks advanced yesterday, as comments by Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) at Davos, Switzerland, helped reinforce investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). Samsung Electronics Co gained as much as 5 percent to an all-time high, helping drive South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI above 5,000 for the first time. That came after the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 3 percent to a fresh record on Wednesday, with a boost from Nvidia. The gains came amid broad risk-on trade after US President Donald Trump withdrew his threat of tariffs on some European nations over backing for Greenland. Huang further
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) shares yesterday notched their best two-day rally on record, as investors flock to the Taiwanese chip designer on excitement over its tie-up with Google. The Taipei-listed stock jumped 8.59 percent, capping a two-session surge of 19 percent and closing at a fresh all-time high of NT$1,770. That extended a two-month rally on growing awareness of MediaTek’s work on Google’s tensor processing units (TPUs), which are chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications. It also highlights how fund managers faced with single-stock limits on their holding of market titan Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) are diversifying into other AI-related firms.
RSS