Large water users are to be subject to an additional water tariff of NT$3 per cubic meter starting on Feb. 1 on top of their monthly water bills during the dry season, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
Called a water consumption fee, the tariff would be imposed on those who use more than 9,000 cubic meters a month from November to April, the ministry said in a statement.
The tariff can be reduced to NT$2 or NT$1 per cubic meter if a certain percentage of the water used by a customer comes from recycled water that did not originally come from an underground source, it said.
Large water users are encouraged to use sea water, develop new water resources or install water conservation devices to be eligible for a discount of up to 60 percent of their water consumption fee, it said.
The water consumption fee charged after accounting for potential discounts would be halved from next month to June 30, 2025, and then charged in full after that, although the discounts would remain in effect, the ministry said.
The ministry originally expected to start levying the water consumption fee in July last year, based on Article 84-1 of the Water Act (水利法), which was amended by the legislature in 2016, Water Resources Agency Deputy Director-General Wang Yi-feng (王藝峰) said.
However, given the electricity price hikes imposed on large-scale users since July last year and other inflationary pressures, the ministry postponed the implementation of the water consumption fee until next month, he said.
The new tariff would be imposed on an estimated 1,700 to 2,200 business users involved mainly in the manufacturing and construction sectors, as well as meat wholesalers, and would raise annual revenue of between NT$600 million and NT$1.4 billion (US$19.54 million and US$45.58 million), Wang 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
HSBC Bank Taiwan Ltd (匯豐台灣商銀) and the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enhance cooperation on the suspicious transaction analysis mechanism. This landmark agreement makes HSBC the first foreign bank in Taiwan to establish such a partnership with the High Prosecutors Office, underscoring its commitment to active anti-fraud initiatives, financial inclusion, and the “Treating Customers Fairly” principle. Through this deep public-private collaboration, both parties aim to co-create a secure financial ecosystem via early warning detection and precise fraud prevention technologies. At the signing ceremony, HSBC Taiwan CEO and head of banking Adam Chen (陳志堅)
RSS