The government’s planned “stimulus coupons” would come in paper form as well as the originally proposed electronic version, Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) said yesterday.
The ministry in March proposed to issue coupons in a bid to boost consumer spending amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are taking a more diverse approach to the issue of coupons ... to make it as convenient as possible” for consumers, Shen told reporters prior to a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee.
“This means that the coupons would be distributed in paper and digital forms,” he said, adding that the coupons would also come in the form of discounts offered through mobile payment methods.
Asked if the coupons would be issued by the end of this month, Shen said that would depend on the Executive Yuan’s review of the plan this week.
“The second quarter is ideal for issuing the coupons ... the government can palliate a [potential] decline in exports by bolstering the local market,” National Central University economics professor Dachrahn Wu (吳大任) told the Taipei Times by telephone.
“We managed to achieve positive growth in GDP last quarter thanks to transferred orders as production in China shut down ... but our manufacturing sector is now facing dwindling market demand from Europe and the US, which make up more than 30 percent of global consumption,” Wu said.
This would have a heavy impact on local industries, Wu said, predicting a drop in export orders for this month.
“To stimulate spending locally, the coupons would have to resemble cash as much as possible,” he said, adding that there should be minimal restrictions on the usage of the coupons.
Wu also proposed setting an early expiration date on the coupons in a bid to maximize their effect on the economy.
“An ideal deadline would be August ... we cannot have people forgetting them or spending them next year, [as] that would be missing the point,” he said.
Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (中華經濟研究院) vice president Wang Jiann-chyuan (王健全) proposed a more intricate plan for the coupons.
Wang on Sunday told the state-run Central News Agency that the coupons should be distributed based on levels of income.
Wang suggested that discounts for hotels and cultural events be offered to well-off people, while cash be distributed to financially disadvantaged people to maximize participation.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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