The European Chamber of Commerce Taiwan (ECCT) yesterday invited presidential candidate Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) for lunch to exchange views, as the foreign trade group found Taiwan lagging behind Japan and South Korea in public health expenditures.
Officials from Novartis AG, a Swiss multinational pharmaceutical company, said Taiwan spends less money on public health, compared with South Korea and Japan where people enjoy better healthcare resources and live longer.
They said that new approved drugs need a long time to hit the market and come under national health insurance coverage, denying patients better choices of medication and treatment.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
“Money used on health enhancement should be deemed as investment, instead of expenses,” they said, citing longer life expectancy and less medical need as returns and benefits.
Ko shared the observations, saying that public health spending constitutes only 6 percent of Taiwan’s GDP, much lower than South Korea’s 8 percent and Japan’s 11 percent.
Furthermore, it would take two years before approved new drugs can be bought on the market and is qualified for national health insurance coverage later, Ko added.
Ko said newly approved drugs should be put on the market right away, coming under health insurance coverage after clearing regulatory procedures online.
“Socialism should be upheld regarding public education and health regardless of economic models different countries embrace,” Ko said, adding that he would incrementally raise health expenditure to 8 percent a year if he steers the country.
The former Taipei mayor also proposed what he called a more pragmatic approach to ensure Taiwan’s energy supply stability by promoting “clean energy” to go hand-in-hand with “green energy.”
Ko said he supports the net-zero carbon emissions policy, but would adjust the power mix because heavy reliance on liquefied natural gas is unhealthy and unfeasible.
However, the TPP chairman said he would be flexible on wind farm regulations by allowing the market mechanism to settle disputes over the required technology localization.
“People in objection of the market mechanism should explain why and come up with alternative and practical solutions,” he said.
Ko added he would ease labor rules and allow more foreign workers into the nation, helping solve manpower shortages faced by assorted sectors on condition that they pay headcount taxes.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by