The Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said yesterday it aims to achieve 80 percent high-speed Internet coverage nationwide in 2012.
The investment plan, part of the “Intelligent Taiwan” project to strengthen the country’s technology infrastructure, aims to raise broadband Internet connections from the present 45 percent to 80 percent, the council said.
The Cabinet has yet to approve the spending program, but it was not expected to stir much controversy since Intelligent Taiwan is one of the 12 “I-Taiwan” projects President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) proposed to create job opportunities and spur economic growth.
The council said increasing broadband coverage could help boost the online shopping market, which was valued at NT$134 billion (US$4.11 billion) in 2006 and rose by 80 percent to NT$139 billion at the end of last year.
In comparison, the global online shopping market amounted to US$640.7 billion in 2006 and grew 22 percent to US$782 billion last year, the council said.
The European Commission earmarked 1 billion euros (US$1.47 billion) last year to achieve 100 percent high-speed Internet coverage for its citizens by next year as part of the economic recovery plan.
While domestic online shopping took off late, the scale of the market has expanded steadily and its value was expected to approach NT$311.6 billion this year, the council said, predicting that online auctions would account for NT$142.7 billion.
The global figure is forecast to reach US$830.3 billion this year and US$951.4 billion next year, rising an average of 10 percent over the past five years, the council said.
The council declined to say how much would be needed to create the infrastructure needed to expand broadband coverage, saying more time was needed to finalize details.
GEOPOLITICAL ISSUES? The economics ministry said that political factors should not affect supply chains linking global satellite firms and Taiwanese manufacturers Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) asked Taiwanese suppliers to transfer manufacturing out of Taiwan, leading to some relocating portions of their supply chain, according to sources employed by and close to the equipment makers and corporate documents. A source at a company that is one of the numerous subcontractors that provide components for SpaceX’s Starlink satellite Internet products said that SpaceX asked their manufacturers to produce outside of Taiwan because of geopolitical risks, pushing at least one to move production to Vietnam. A second source who collaborates with Taiwanese satellite component makers in the nation said that suppliers were directly
Top Taiwanese officials yesterday moved to ease concern about the potential fallout of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, making a case that the technology restrictions promised by the former US president against China would outweigh the risks to the island. The prospect of Trump’s victory in this week’s election is a worry for Taipei given the Republican nominee in the past cast doubt over the US commitment to defend it from Beijing. But other policies championed by Trump toward China hold some appeal for Taiwan. National Development Council Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) described the proposed technology curbs as potentially having
EXPORT CONTROLS: US lawmakers have grown more concerned that the US Department of Commerce might not be aggressively enforcing its chip restrictions The US on Friday said it imposed a US$500,000 penalty on New York-based GlobalFoundries Inc, the world’s third-largest contract chipmaker, for shipping chips without authorization to an affiliate of blacklisted Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯). The US Department of Commerce in a statement said GlobalFoundries sent 74 shipments worth US$17.1 million to SJ Semiconductor Corp (盛合晶微半導體), an affiliate of SMIC, without seeking a license. Both SMIC and SJ Semiconductor were added to the department’s trade restriction Entity List in 2020 over SMIC’s alleged ties to the Chinese military-industrial complex. SMIC has denied wrongdoing. Exports to firms on the list
TALENT FACTOR: The nation’s chip sector would be difficult to replace, but to maintain that advantage, Taiwan must retain skilled workers, an academic said A group of experts on Sunday called on Taiwan to strive to maintain its world-leading position in the semiconductor industry, with a US-China chip dispute expected to continue regardless of who becomes the next US president. Tamkang University Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies director Li Da-jung (李大中) said at a Taipei seminar on global semiconductor security that the relationship between the two superpowers would remain confrontational. There appears to be “no turning back” in US-China relations, as US presidential candidates US Vice President Kamala Harris and former US president Donald Trump are both expected to continue Washington’s hawkish stance
RSS