Taiwan is learning from companies in Ukraine which continue to operate during the country’s fight against Russia, a senior Taiwan official said yesterday, as the natioin speeds up contingency planning amid heightened Chinese threats.
“We hope to learn from Ukraine’s first-hand experiences — how private companies helped build the resilience of its government and society during wartime,” said a senior Taiwan security official, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
The official pointed to companies in Ukraine including Uber and Microsoft that continued to provide critical services.
Photo: Taipei Times, file photo
Ideas include how to incorporate supermarkets into the government’s supply distribution network and utilizing taxi services for medical emergencies such as blood donations when the health system is overwhelmed.
The official said the government was working to connect companies in Taiwan with their counterparts in Ukraine in order to help Taiwan firms quickly boost their contingency planning.
“We have the will to fight, and now we must also look closely into our will to prepare,” the official said.
Taiwan is revamping its air-raid alert and shelter systems, taking into account lessons by northern European countries and Baltic states, the official added.
A closed-door workshop on preparations including stockpiling and civil defense training was held in Taipei this week, which was attended by Taiwan security officials and senior diplomats from countries including the US, Japan and Australia.
Andy Hunder, who heads the American Chamber of Commerce in Ukraine and is a speaker at the workshop, told reporters the government must establish backup online systems, pointing to Russian cyber attacks aimed at paralyzing Ukraine infrastructure before the first missile attacks.
“What we have seen is that during World War Two, the safest place for critical infrastructure is down in the tunnels. Today, the safest infrastructure is in the clouds,” Hunder said, adding payment services such as Mastercard and Visa continued to operate and ensured financial stability.
“Technology, banking, food, delivery, retail — how do you keep the economy running?” he said when asked how the Taiwan government should prepare itself.
The recent decline in average room rates is undoubtedly bad news for Taiwan’s hoteliers and homestay operators, but this downturn shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. According to statistics published by the Tourism Administration (TA) on March 3, the average cost of a one-night stay in a hotel last year was NT$2,960, down 1.17 percent compared to 2023. (At more than three quarters of Taiwan’s hotels, the average room rate is even lower, because high-end properties charging NT$10,000-plus skew the data.) Homestay guests paid an average of NT$2,405, a 4.15-percent drop year on year. The countrywide hotel occupancy rate fell from
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