Taiwan might face a decline in foreign trade with China if the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) ends this year, Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) said yesterday.
The agreement, which was signed and put into effect in 2010 to reduce trade barriers across the Taiwan Strait, is expected to end this year, despite not having an exact termination date.
“We have not received notification [from China] that it wishes to terminate ECFA,” Shen told reporters prior to attending a meeting at the Legislative Yuan. “Even if we are notified, the agreement would only cease after six months.”
While acknowledging the potential effects on Taiwan’s economy, Shen said termination of the agreement would affect less than 5 percent of commercial exchanges with China.
“The essential thing is for our industries to upgrade and transform,” Shen said, adding that companies should expand their commercial horizons to prepare for any disruptions in the agreement.
Separately, when asked about previously announced e-commerce vouchers to boost the local economy, Shen said that the ministry has already outlined a few general ideas for issuing them.
On Wednesday, Shen revealed that the ministry plans to provide discounts of 20 to 25 percent on purchases made online with the vouchers.
“The point is not to have people making big purchases in one go, but to spend on a day-to-day basis,” Shen said, adding that the vouchers would mainly be valid for daily necessities.
In other news, the ministry yesterday approved applications from eight small and medium-sized enterprises to invest about NT$2 billion (US$66.1 million) in the nation through a government program.
Food products suppliers Fu Che Frozen Food Co Ltd (福記冷凍食品) and Feng Fang Food Co Ltd (芬芳烹材) plan to invest more than NT$400 million each to expand existing production in Taiwan.
Morrison Opto-Electronics Ltd (耀穎光電), which makes optical thin-film coatings and components, is to invest more than NT$300 million to expand production, the ministry said.
Medical equipment suppliers Sangtech Lab Inc (笙特科技) and Medimaging Integrated Solution Inc (晉弘科技) are to invest NT$200 million and NT$100 million respectively to introduce automated production to existing plants.
Sewing machine component supplier Donwei Machinery Industry Co Ltd (東緯機械), manufacturer Jien Wei Knitting Co Ltd (建瑋棉織) and jewelry maker Su-Ao International Corp (豐昌行國際) are to invest a combined NT$400 million.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
Demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips should spur growth for the semiconductor industry over the next few years, the CEO of a major supplier to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) said, dismissing concerns that investors had misjudged the pace and extent of spending on AI. While the global chip market has grown about 8 percent annually over the past 20 years, AI semiconductors should grow at a much higher rate going forward, Scientech Corp (辛耘) chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chi (許明琪) told Bloomberg Television. “This booming of the AI industry has just begun,” Hsu said. “For the most prominent
PARTNERSHIPS: TSMC said it has been working with multiple memorychip makers for more than two years to provide a full spectrum of solutions to address AI demand Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it has been collaborating with multiple memorychip makers in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications for more than two years, refuting South Korean media report's about an unprecedented partnership with Samsung Electronics Co. As Samsung is competing with TSMC for a bigger foundry business, any cooperation between the two technology heavyweights would catch the eyes of investors and experts in the semiconductor industry. “We have been working with memory partners, including Micron, Samsung Memory and SK Hynix, on HBM solutions for more than two years, aiming to advance 3D integrated circuit
NATURAL PARTNERS: Taiwan and Japan have complementary dominant supply chain positions, are geographically and culturally close, and have similar work ethics Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and other related companies would add ￥11.2 trillion (US$78.31 billion) to Japan’s chipmaking hot spot Kumamoto Prefecture over the next decade, a local bank’s analysis said. Kyushu Financial Group, a lender based in Kumamoto’s capital, almost doubled its projection for the economic impact that the chip sector would bring to the region compared to its estimate a year earlier, a presentation on Thursday said. The bank said that 171 firms had made new investments since November 2021, up from 90 in an earlier analysis. TSMC’s Kumamoto location was once a sleepy farming area, but has undergone
RSS