The government has removed Lithuania from its list of nations free of avian influenza and has banned live poultry imports from the European country after an outbreak was confirmed at a poultry farm, the Council of Agriculture said yesterday.
Importing live birds or eggs used for breeding purposes from Lithuania has been banned with immediate effect, the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine said.
The ban should not have any effect on local supplies of poultry, as Taiwan does not currently import live birds from the European nation, the bureau said.
The government’s announcement came after Lithuania reported an outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N8 avian influenza virus among poultry to the World Organization for Animal Health on Friday last week.
The Lithuanian Ministry of Agriculture reported an outbreak in the city of Kaunas that killed 22 birds in a yard, with the remaining five birds being culled, Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine Deputy Director-General Hsu Jung-pin (徐榮彬) said.
Avian influenza viruses are most common during the fall and winter.
Outbreaks of the disease have also been reported among poultry or wild birds in a number of other nations, including Japan, South Korea, France, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Ireland, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Slovakia, Iran, Italy, Croatia, Russia and China.
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
RSS