The Ministry of Economic Affairs will publish a comprehensive safety assessment report on the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant before August, when a referendum is tentatively set to take place to decide the fate of the controversial plant, the nation’s top economics official said yesterday.
Minister of Economic Affairs Chang Chia-juch (張家祝) said that if the power plant failed to meet safety standards, the ministry would never allow Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) to operate it and a referendum is not needed.
“Basically, we aim to ensure that the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant can operate safely, so the purpose for holding a referendum is meaningful,” Chang said at the legislature’s Economics Committee.
In response to rising public concern about the safety of the power plant in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City (新北市), Chang reiterated that the ministry has made operational safety its top priority and is conducting various tests to safeguard the nation’s security.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) said the ministry should follow public opinion and abandon construction of the power plant immediately to reduce government expenditure.
In response, Chang said the ministry, as the supervisor of Taipower, was only implementing a project that was approved by the Executive Yuan and the legislature, adding that the ministry has no option but do its job according to schedule.
“We will let the public decide whether to operate the plant,” Chang said.
In response to another question, Chang said he could not promise lawmakers that he would step down if the consumer price index rose above 2.5 percent this year, or if electricity rates are not frozen in October.
“I only have to fulfill my duty as minister of economic affairs. I don’t have to make irresponsible promises,” he said.
Chang also said Taiwan’s talks with Singapore and New Zealand on proposed economic partnership agreements were expected to be completed by the first half of this year.
However, he did not give an exact timetable for the conclusion of the agreements, saying that Taiwan could not make a unilateral announcement because the negotiations involve other parties.
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
BRAVE NEW WORLD: Nvidia believes that AI would fuel a new industrial revolution and would ‘do whatever we can’ to guide US AI policy, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Tuesday said he is ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump and offer his help to the incoming administration. “I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that he has not been invited to visit Trump’s home base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yet. As head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Huang has an opportunity to help steer the administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy at a moment of rapid change.
TARIFF SURGE: The strong performance could be attributed to the growing artificial intelligence device market and mass orders ahead of potential US tariffs, analysts said The combined revenue of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange and the Taipei Exchange for the whole of last year totaled NT$44.66 trillion (US$1.35 trillion), up 12.8 percent year-on-year and hit a record high, data compiled by investment consulting firm CMoney showed on Saturday. The result came after listed firms reported a 23.92 percent annual increase in combined revenue for last month at NT$4.1 trillion, the second-highest for the month of December on record, and posted a 15.63 percent rise in combined revenue for the December quarter at NT$12.25 billion, the highest quarterly figure ever, the data showed. Analysts attributed the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) quarterly sales topped estimates, reinforcing investor hopes that the torrid pace of artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending would extend into this year. The go-to chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported a 39 percent rise in December-quarter revenue to NT$868.5 billion (US$26.35 billion), based on calculations from monthly disclosures. That compared with an average estimate of NT$854.7 billion. The strong showing from Taiwan’s largest company bolsters expectations that big tech companies from Alphabet Inc to Microsoft Corp would continue to build and upgrade datacenters at a rapid clip to propel AI development. Growth accelerated for
RSS