■IMMIGRATION
MOI may lower threshold
The Ministry of the Interior (MOI) adopted a draft amendment to the Regulations Governing Visiting, Residence and Permanent Residence of Aliens on Thursday in a move it hopes will attract more foreigners to invest in Taiwan. At present, Article 12 of the regulations stipulates that foreigners who invest NT$30 million (US$891,950) or more in Taiwan and create at least five jobs for locals for three years can be granted permanent residency. The same article also says that individuals who deposit immigration investments of NT$30 million into a designated financial institution for five years can obtain permanent residency. The proposed amendment to Article 12 of the regulations would halve the investment threshold for foreign investors applying for permanent residency to NT$15 million. The draft amendment will be submitted to the Cabinet for approval.
■RETAIL
Flower prices rise
Local flower prices have risen by between 10 percent and 20 percent in recent days because of a reduced supply resulting from cold weather, Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Wu-hsiung (陳武雄) said yesterday. Chen said that a cold front that hit between Jan. 9 and Jan. 15 drove down the flower supply by 30 percent to 40 percent ahead of the Lunar New Year festival when compared with last year, leading to hikes in flower prices on the local market. With the approach of the holiday tomorrow, farmers are busy harvesting flowers to meet market demand. It is expected that they will be able to meet demand and will supply good quality flowers, Chen said. Taiwanese usually decorate their homes with flower arrangements during the holiday, using various types of blooms including lilies, swordlilies, anthuriums, balloon flowers and African daisies.
■AGRICULTURE
Young farmer honored
A graduate student at National Chiayi University (NCU) who also owns Taiwan’s largest organic farm was selected yesterday as one of the top 10 farmers in the country. Lee Wei-yu (李惟裕), who is attending NCU’s Graduate Institute of Agriculture, was the only student to make the prestigious Top Ten Outstanding Farmers list this year. Lee and nine other nominees are scheduled to be conferred the prestigious honor in April by the Council of Agriculture. Lee and three friends established Ten Ha Organic Farm in Tainan County’s Rende Township (仁德) three years ago. In a short period of time, Lee and his partners turned the vast 16-hectare tract of barren land into fertile farmland using ecological methods and organic fertilizers.
■ARCHITECTURE
Dutch firm wins bid
Dutch firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) beat 135 rivals from 24 countries on Thursday to win the contract to design a world-class performing arts center in Taipei. Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) announced that OMA, designer of many world-famous landmarks, had been chosen to design the Taipei Performing Arts Center. OMA will form a consortium with Taiwan’s Artech Inc to design the 2.2-hectare center, which will house one 1,500-seat theater and two 800-seat theaters. Designing the center will take about one year. It is scheduled to open in 2013. The Taipei City Government will also invite international architectural teams to design two other cultural facilities: the Taipei Pop Music Center and Taipei City Museum.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
THE TOUR: Pope Francis has gone on a 12-day visit to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore. He was also invited to Taiwan The government yesterday welcomed Pope Francis to the Asia-Pacific region and said it would continue extending an invitation for him to visit Taiwan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the remarks as Pope Francis began a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific on Monday. He is to travel about 33,000km by air to visit Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and Singapore, and would arrive back in Rome on Friday next week. It would be the longest and most challenging trip of Francis’ 11-year papacy. The 87-year-old has had health issues over the past few years and now uses a wheelchair. The ministry said
TAIWANESE INNOVATION: The ‘Seawool’ fabric generates about NT$200m a year, with the bulk of it sourced by clothing brands operating in Europe and the US Growing up on Taiwan’s west coast where mollusk farming is popular, Eddie Wang saw discarded oyster shells transformed from waste to function — a memory that inspired him to create a unique and environmentally friendly fabric called “Seawool.” Wang remembered that residents of his seaside hometown of Yunlin County used discarded oyster shells that littered the streets during the harvest as insulation for their homes. “They burned the shells and painted the residue on the walls. The houses then became warm in the winter and cool in the summer,” the 42-year-old said at his factory in Tainan. “So I was
‘LEADERS’: The report highlighted C.C. Wei’s management at TSMC, Lisa Su’s decisionmaking at AMD and the ‘rock star’ status of Nvidia’s Huang Time magazine on Thursday announced its list of the 100 most influential people in artificial intelligence (AI), which included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家), Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) and AMD chair and CEO Lisa Su (蘇姿丰). The list is divided into four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers and Thinkers. Wei and Huang were named in the Leaders category. Other notable figures in the Leaders category included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Su was listed in the Innovators category. Time highlighted Wei’s
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