The decline of the nation’s competitiveness ranking in the latest International Institute for Management Development (IMD) report shows the government needs to conduct a review to make improvements, Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said yesterday.
Jiang told a Cabinet meeting that there was no need to panic over the nation’s competitiveness because of the report, but Cabinet members have to take it as a “warning” and actively address the problems it has highlighted.
The IMD lowered Taiwan’s global competitiveness ranking for this year by four notches to 11th, the nation’s worst performance since 2009, with across-the-board declines in all four subindices — economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure.
The IMD Competitiveness Index comprises four subindices, which are divided into 20 pillars made up of 323 variables.
Jiang demanded that Cabinet agencies review each variable with humility.
A set of economic stimulus measures that began last year went in the right direction, but the question was whether the government can fully implement the measures, he said.
At a press conference following the Cabinet meeting, Council for Economic Planning and Development Minister Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) said that the report showed Taiwan’s global competitiveness ranking has declined, but that it did not mean Taiwan had become less competitive, rather that other countries had made more progress, Kuan said.
“Despite that, Taiwan’s competitiveness is still strong,” he said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$10.26 billion to finance the construction of its second fab in Kumamoto, Japan, and a second fab in Arizona, using advanced process technologies. The Department of Investment Review approved TSMC’s investment applications on the basis that Taiwan remains a major technology and manufacturing hub for the chipmaker, which makes its most advanced chips at home, the company operates its research-and-development center here and the majority of its capacity remains in Taiwan. The latest capital injections — US$5.26 billion for its Japanese venture Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing
DIVERSIFYING: Following customers’ demand to improve supply chain resilience, ASE is looking for sites in the US, Japan and Mexico, a company executive said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it plans to launch a new high-end chip testing fab in the US next month to better serve its key customers based in North America, particularly California-based artificial intelligence (AI) customers. The new US testing facility would be operated by the firm’s subsidiary ISE Labs Inc, it said. ASE’s major customers, and high-ranking US officials and representatives from American Institute in Taiwan are to attend the fab’s opening ceremony on July 12, it said. ISE Labs last year acquired a 5,942m2 facility in San
Local companies believe that nearly a third of all job opportunities will vanish in 10 years due to the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), according to a survey released by online job bank yes123 on Tuesday. In the survey of 1,016 companies on the labor market’s third quarter outlook, the job bank focused in part on AI’s impact on workers and asked companies what percentage of jobs they felt would be lost to AI’s round-the-clock productivity and high-speed computing prowess. Respondents felt on average that 29.2 percent of job opportunities would be lost to AI over the next 10 years, but there
Taiwanese workers earned an average of NT$47,000 per month this year, but 40 percent are struggling financially and 18 percent plan to switch jobs within 12 months, two separate surveys showed yesterday. The amount equals a 5.4 percent increase from a year earlier to a decade high, 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said. The government is due to review the nation’s minimum wages. Employees at computer and consumer electronics manufacturers reported the highest average monthly wage of NT$60,000 a month, followed by semiconductor firms at NT$59,000, and vendors of shoe and textile products, along with software and Internet businesses at NT$55,000, 104 Job