The European Chamber of Commerce Taipei (ECCT) yesterday laid out a one-year timetable in three phases for future policy deregulation that the foreign business chamber expects president-elect Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to deliver soon after he takes office next month.
By August, the ECCT expects Ma to realize his campaign promises, including direct weekend charter flights to China, allowing 3,000 Chinese tourists per day to Taiwan and eliminating the 40 percent cap on China-bound investments while providing tax incentives for high-tech companies, as a way to boost the local economy and create a friendly environment for foreign businesses, ECCT chairman Philippe Pellegrin told reporters after a board meeting with the chamber’s 15 directors.
“After the election, Taiwan is back on the map,” said Pellegrin, who is also the senior country officer of investment bank Calyon’s Taipei Branch, while expressing European businesses’ support for the new government’s efforts to better link the local economy to that of the region.
Pellegrin said there appeared to be a change in the mood at European headquarters as some European businesses, which had bypassed Taiwan for years, were reevaluating how they could leverage the nation’s strength to increase their presence in the greater China region.
Another ECCT director, Jim McCabe, president of Standard Chartered Bank Taiwan (渣打銀行), was also “upbeat’ about the local economy and the financial sector’s outlook.
The chamber said that the nation’s strengths are now becoming better known among European businesses with its well-educated work force, good infrastructure and relatively good quality of living environment in Asia.
Some of the chamber’s members, however, said they would be very disappointed if Ma failed to make progress in his first year in office.
“He has a mandate to accelerate, otherwise we may be talking negatively in a year,” said ECCT director Alois Hofbauer, who is also the general manager of Nestle Taiwan Ltd (雀巢).
In addition, the chamber expects that by the second phase in December, Ma would lift foreign investment limits such as the 0.4 percent ceiling on Chinese H-shares, remove the ban on Chinese imports and develop a global marketing campaign to highlight the nation’s advantages and development potential.
In a year, the chamber hopes Ma will fulfill his “roadmap to prosperity” by implementing regular direct passenger and cargo flights across the Strait, lowering corporate and personal income tax to levels that are competitive with Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea, and extending the tax loss carry forward period to 15 to 20 years from the current 10 years, while revitalizing the coastal zones to develop the yachting and water sports industry.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors