Action should be taken to stop foreign firms investing in tobacco factories, activists said yesterday, condemning the Ministry of Economic Affairs for providing economic incentives even as tobacco production in other developed nations has fallen.
The Japan Tobacco International’s (JTI) investment in a new factory in the Tainan Technology Industrial Park comes as the “sun is setting” for the industry in Japan, John Tung Foundation chief executive officer Yao Shi-yuan (姚思遠) said, demanding that the government put the tobacco industry on a list of industries for which foreign investment is forbidden.
John Tung Foundation tobacco control division head Lin Ching-li (林清麗) said that four of Japan’s nine tobacco factories were scheduled to close by the end of the year, with an estimated 1,600 workers losing their jobs.
Because of the prohibitively high cost of producing cigarettes in Japan, the firms are being forced to move production overseas, Lin said.
The incentives the government provides for overseas investors — which include assistance acquiring land and exemptions from property and building taxes — are why Taiwan is seen as a base for expansion, she said.
The foundation called on the Executive Yuan to issue an order forbidding the construction of any more tobacco factories while also placing the industry on a list of industries closed to foreign investment.
It also called for the revocation of JTI’s construction license and the appropriation of Imperial Tobacco’s Miaoli factory, the only other foreign-owned tobacco factory in the nation.
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
RSS