New Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) took office today, saying he would "prioritize the economy" and take action on response measures to tariffs.
"I believe Taiwan will always have a path to follow in any situation," Kung told reporters after the ceremony, addressing the US' announcement last month of a 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese imports.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
"Tariffs are a pretty complicated matter," he said. "If competitors seize the US market with lower tariffs, it means non-US markets open up very big opportunities."
"It is not entirely the case that high tariffs mean there is no way forward," Kung added. "It depends on the situation."
Kung also thanked the legislature for passing a special act to strengthen economic, social and defense resilience amid global challenges, which provides NT$93 billion (US$3.04 billion) in industrial support.
"The Cabinet will soon submit a special budget," he said, adding that it has already instructed ministries to provide urgent assistance.
Kung said he would meet with industry and commerce representatives later in the day, then visit central and southern Taiwan over the next couple of days to "learn about the situation of individual enterprises and propose countermeasures."
Kung, who previously served as head of the National Development Council and as a deputy economics minister, was secretary-general of the Executive Yuan before becoming economics minister.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS