The Council of Agriculture yesterday signed a Taiwan-Australia Agricultural Cooperation Implementation clause to open a new export market for the nation’s pineapple crop.
The clause is an addition to existing cooperation measures, it said.
China on Friday last week abruptly announced that it would suspend pineapple imports from Taiwan starting on Monday, on grounds that it had on multiple occasions discovered “harmful organisms” in shipments of the fruit.
The public and private sectors have since joined hands to purchase the local fruit to help the nation’s pineapple farmers.
Canberra has requested that all pineapples for export to Australia have their crown buds removed, the council said.
Taiwan last year developed a method to remove the crown bud without causing the fruit to rot or grow moldy, it said, adding that the fruits would be fumigated to prolong their freshness.
The council said that it expects to ship 6 tonnes of pineapples by sea freight, with the first shipment scheduled for May, while smaller quantities would be sent by air cargo.
The clause would bolster agricultural trade, investment and exchange of agricultural technologies between Taiwan and Australia, it said.
The clause was signed separately by council Deputy Secretary-General Chen Junne-jih (陳駿季) and Australian Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment Deputy Secretary David Hazlehurst in Taipei and Canberra respectively.
Taiwan and Australia have worked with each other since the signing of a memorandum of understanding for agriculture and agricultural corporations collaboration in 2001, the council said.
Collaborative efforts include the exchange and recognition of each other’s food safety information, as well as the Queensland state government’s assistance in promoting the production of Taiwanese lychee and bananas resistant to fusarium wilt, it said.
The clause seeks to approach issues from a new angle and integrate resources to meet new potential problems, the council said.
Regular official meetings aside, Taipei and Canberra hope to hold more academic and business forums to encourage visits to Taiwanese and Australian industries, as well as other events, to promote the sales of produce, it said.
The nation hopes to establish a trustworthy and effective foodstuff and produce supply chain with Australia, the council said.
STRONG RELATIONSHIPS: China would not blockade Taiwan, because President Xi respects him, and Russia would not have invaded if he were president, he said Former US president and the Republican candidate in next month’s presidential election Donald Trump said he would impose additional tariffs on China if China were to “go into Taiwan,” the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported. “I would say: If you go into Taiwan, I’m sorry to do this, I’m going to tax you, at 150 percent to 200 percent,” Trump was quoted as saying in an interview with the WSJ published on Friday. Asked if he would use military force against a blockade on Taiwan by China, Trump said it would not come to that because Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) respected
The Taipei Department of Transportation discouraged YouBike 2.0E users from taking them on long-distance trips after a Taipei city councilor said that riders often use the new electric bike, YouBike 2.0E, to climb Yangmingshan (陽明山). Taipei earlier this year began offering the first 30 minutes of YouBike 2.0 rentals for free, with Taipei and New Taipei offering the YouBike 2.0E on Aug. 30 to encourage rider usage. For YouBike 2.0, the rate is NT$10 per 30 minutes within the first four hours, NT$20 per 30 minutes for five to eight hours and NT$40 per 30 minutes after eight hours. Meanwhile, for e-bikes,
RESOURCE RICH: Taiwan is located in the Pacific Ring of Fire and has up to 30 gigawatts of the potential energy, of which 10 gigawatts could be economically viable Academia Sinica and CPC Corp yesterday began drilling the nation’s first deep geothermal well in Yilan County’s Yuanshan Township (員山). The 4km-deep well is expected to take 18 months to complete and has an estimated investment of NT$337 million (US$10.54 million), Academia Sinica President James Liao (廖俊智) said. “While Taiwan has up to 30 gigawatts of potential deep geothermal energy, with an estimated 10 gigawatts being economically viable, only by digging wells can we determine the actual amount of commercially viable geothermal energy,” Liao said at the project’s opening ceremony. Data collected during and after the excavation process would be used for future
HACKERS’ MARKET: Chat logs about Taiwan and documents outlining ways to take over online accounts were leaked from a company that sells data from hacks Taiwanese cybersecurity specialists found 577 leaked documents which show that the Chinese Communist Party is engaging in “cognitive warfare” against Taiwan through cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, a documentary released last month by Japanese public broadcaster NHK showed. The filmmakers behind Tracking China’s Leaked Documents said they spent six months visiting seven countries, including Taiwan, where they interviewed members of TeamT5, a malware research and cybersecurity firm, which found the leaked documents. TeamT5 said they discovered a string of mysterious URLs on the social media platform X, which they suspected could be accounts created by hackers or people who leaked data, which led