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.
ELECTRONICS BOOST: A predicted surge in exports would likely be driven by ICT products, exports of which have soared 84.7 percent from a year earlier, DBS said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast for Taiwan this year to 4 percent from 3 percent, citing robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI)-related exports and accelerated shipment activity, which are expected to offset potential headwinds from US tariffs. “Our GDP growth forecast for 2025 is revised up to 4 percent from 3 percent to reflect front-loaded exports and strong AI demand,” Singapore-based DBS senior economist Ma Tieying (馬鐵英) said in an online briefing. Taiwan’s second-quarter performance beat expectations, with GDP growth likely surpassing 5 percent, driven by a 34.1 percent year-on-year increase in exports, Ma said, citing government
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
‘REMARKABLE SHOWING’: The economy likely grew 5 percent in the first half of the year, although it would likely taper off significantly, TIER economist Gordon Sun said The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) yesterday raised Taiwan’s GDP growth forecast for this year to 3.02 percent, citing robust export-driven expansion in the first half that is likely to give way to a notable slowdown later in the year as the front-loading of global shipments fades. The revised projection marks an upward adjustment of 0.11 percentage points from April’s estimate, driven by a surge in exports and corporate inventory buildup ahead of possible US tariff hikes, TIER economist Gordon Sun (孫明德) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy likely grew more than 5 percent in the first six months
RSS