■CONSUMER GOODS
MOEA plans ‘Halal’ talk
The government will hold a seminar on July 29 on Halal certification, an Islamic product certification for products considered acceptable for consumption by Muslims worldwide, to help local companies explore Islamic markets. Halal certification is recognition that food, medical, cosmetics, machinery and other daily products are permissible for use by Muslims under Islamic law, a statement by the Bureau of Foreign Trade said on Thursday. Halal is an Arabic word that means “lawful.” The market for the certified products could generate business opportunities worth more than US$1 trillion, as the world has roughly 1.8 billion Muslims, the bureau said.
■SAFETY
Unsafe goods identified
More than half of the substandard products imported to Taiwan last month were goods made in China, an official at the Consumer Protection Commission said yesterday. Liu Ching-fang (劉清芳), director of supervision and coordination at the commission, said that the agency published warnings about 65 unsafe imported goods last month, including 34 from China. A total of 59 of the warnings concerned goods classified as commercial products, including 23 chemical industrial products, 13 electronics products and four toy products. The remaining six warnings fell into the category of food and agriculture products.
■AVIATION
AIDC celebrates cockpit
The Aviation Industrial Development Corp (AIDC, 漢翔航空) held a celebration at its complex in Shalu (沙鹿) in Taichung County on Friday to mark the completion of its 100th cockpit for the Sikorsky S-92 helicopter. The AIDC and aviation firms from other countries have joined US-based Sikorsky Aircraft Corp to produce the 20-seat helicopter, which is used for civilian purposes. The S-92 is known for being safe and reliable for cargo and passenger transport, search and rescue missions and surveying resources. Sikorsky has an order for 200 S-92 helicopters, which means AIDC expects to make another 100 for a total value of NT$7 billion (US$229.5 million).
■DEVELOPMENT
Investment plans revealed
Major domestic industrial investment projects will amount to an estimated NT$4 trillion (US$131.58 billion) over the next four years, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) said on Friday. If all goes smoothly, Liu said, the investment amount will surpass the NT$1 trillion mark this year alone. By industry, Liu said, NT$163 billiion would be invested in optoelectronics, NT$143 billion in the semiconductor sector, NT$130 billion in the steel industry and NT$40 billion in the petrochemical industry.
■ENERGY
Bureau promotes bulbs
Replacing incandescent light bulbs with power-saving bulbs all around Taiwan can save an estimated 800 million kilowatt-hours of electricity and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 500,000 tonnes per year, the Bureau of Energy said in a statement on Friday. The reduction in emissions is equivalent to planting 27.84 million trees. Taiwan sells some 22.2 million incandescent light bulbs every year on the domestic market, which consume 1.1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, the bureau said. The bureau is promoting a five-year program, starting this year, to replace the country’s incandescent light bulbs with power-saving bulbs or other high efficiency bulbs.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
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