Premier Yu Shyi-kun yesterday set the goal of attracting 18 biotechnology investment projects by 2010 and pledged to make Taiwan the manufacturing, operation and research and development center of the biotechnology industry.
"Since the biotechnology industry possesses a high value-added potential, we thought the government should make efforts to help expedite the research and development of the nation's key biotechnological industry in the internationally competitive market," Cabinet Spokesman Lin Chia-lung (
Yu made the remark during the weekly closed-door Cabinet affairs meeting yesterday morning, in which he approved the adjustments of an action plan designed to strengthen the competitiveness of the nation's biotechnology industry.
With the full implementation of the plan, Yu said that the Cabinet hopes to construct a sound foundation and investment environment for the biotechnology sector.
"Since we have limited resources, it sounds like a good idea to integrate all the resources and competitive edges we have, prioritize the tasks we want to accomplish and do our best to reach our goal," Yu said.
Since the government launched the project in 1995, Yu said that the government has seen the private sector grow more interested in investing in the biotechnology sector.
The annual investment amount for last year was registered at NT$20.3 billion, up from NT$12.1 billion of the previous year. The number of newly established biotechnology or pharmaceutical companies has also grown from three in 1997 to 150 as of last year.
Biotechnology-oriented parks have also been established in northern and central Taiwan. They include a biotechnology building in Nankang District, Taipei City, a pharmaceutical park in Hsinchu County and an agriculture and biotechnology park, also in Hsinchu County.
To reach the ultimate goal of attracting 18 biotechnology investment projects by 2010, Yu said that government agencies will coordinate their efforts to achieve the goal.
The Cabinet will continue to increase research and development funds available for biotechnological or pharmaceutical companies.
The government will also continue to encourage local biotechnological or pharmaceutical companies to team up with foreign biotechnological or pharmaceutical companies in international cooperation projects.
The Cabinet will also make efforts to amend existing laws or enact new laws to make the legal structure for the development of biotechnology more complete.
To solve the capital problem for the establishment of biotechnology companies or those needing funds to researching and developing new products, the Cabinet also plans to set aside a seed fund available for needy companies.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS