In the wake of the recent food scare in which Chang Chi Foodstuff Factory Co (大統長基) allegedly added illegal additives to edible oils, the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) has inventoried and frozen all financial assets of the company’s manager and will severely punish the company if it was found to be involved in illegal gains, the Executive Yuan said yesterday.
Vice Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) called a meeting to address the issue, focusing on how to handle future food security violations, such as what strategies to take for looking into foodstuff sources, third-party monitoring, and warehouse checking and management to prevent similar incidents.
Mao said that the Executive Yuan’s stance was to “ask for the severest, heaviest penalties,” adding that the government would endeavor to simplify and tighten security screening on food products.
Given that the newly amended Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法) took effect on June 21, the government is implementing severe fines to halt malignant and willful acts of violations of the law, the Executive Yuan said, adding that it would continue to work on tighter interagency coordination in order to ensure clean food sources.
The Executive Yuan is also reaching out to volunteers, mainly targeting university students in the roughly 130 food and nutrition-related departments across the nation, to help serve as a safety buffer by assisting in verifying food labels or inspecting food source locations, Mao said.
RESILIENCE: Taiwan plays a key role in semiconductors, energy, information infrastructure and advanced manufacturing, AIT Director Raymond Greene said Taiwan’s continued investment in deterrence and resilience remains vital, especially in uncrewed systems and other emerging technologies, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene said yesterday. Greene made the remarks at the annual National Strategic Summit on Supply Chain Resilience held by the Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET), a government-backed think tank. As Taiwan last year became the US’ fourth-largest trading partner and supply chain security is becoming more important, cooperation in emerging technologies continues to deepen between the two countries, he said. The US is committed to accelerating innovation, building key infrastructure, strengthening cooperation
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
RIGHT DIRECTION: Taiwan’s efforts to prevent forced labor include a proposal to ‘fully prohibit’ employers from withholding workers’ documents, an official said Taiwan is to establish a mechanism to restrict imports of goods linked to forced labor, the Executive Yuan said yesterday, after the US proposed imposing additional tariffs on Taiwanese goods over labor concerns. “The Ministry of Labor and the Ministry of Economic Affairs are to establish an interministerial review procedure,” Executive Yuan spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “The government is to use the Foreign Trade Act [貿易法] as the legal basis to restrict imports of goods produced with forced labor” and bring its supply chain governance more in line with international standards on human rights, resilience
NOT IMMEDIATE: Taiwan has a chance to appeal the proposed 10 percent tariff before it starts, while other countries face a 12.5 percent tariff from the trade office Taiwan is among 60 economies determined by the US to have failed to impose or enforce a ban on the importation of goods produced with forced labor, according to a notice released on Tuesday by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), which proposed imposing an additional 10 percent or more tariff on them. The USTR in a statement said that following an investigation, it had determined under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 that the failure of the 60 economies to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor is
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