Twenty thousand boxes of 50 masks each would be on sale at FamilyMart convenience stores starting tomorrow, Taiwan FamilyMart Co Ltd (全家便利商店) said yesterday.
A box of 50 masks would cost NT$249 for those with FamilyMart memberships and NT$299 for those without, with no limits placed on how many boxes a person can buy, the company said.
Convenience store chain operator Hi-Life International Co Ltd (萊爾富) said that it would also start selling masks from tomorrow.
Photo: Chang Tsung-chiu, Taipei Times
It has yet to announce details about prices and quantity.
Hypermarket chain operator Carrefour Taiwan (家樂福) said that it would start selling packs of five and seven masks from today, with customers limited to one pack each.
Carrefour said that the 18,000 packs of masks it plans to sell are previously imported stock.
Cosmetics chain operator Poya International Co Ltd (寶雅國際) said that it has 1 million domestically produced masks to sell at its stores, with sales possibly starting as early as Thursday.
The masks would be sold in boxes of 50, as well as smaller numbers, and masks for adults and children would be available at NT$5 to NT$7 each, Poya said.
There would be no limit on the amount of masks a customer can purchase, Poya said.
Other retailers, including drugstore chain Cosmed (康是美), supermarket chain Simple Mart (美廉社), hypermarket chain A-Mart (愛買) and President Chain Store Corp’s (統一超商) 7-Eleven convenience store chain, all said that they are either waiting to judge consumer demand or are at different stages of ordering from domestic manufacturers.
After the nation’s first COVID-19 cases were confirmed, the government on Jan. 31 began requisitioning domestic masks, before launching a rationing system on Feb. 6 using National Health Insurance (NHI) cards.
Since then, daily production capacity has been increased from 1.88 million masks to about 20 million.
From today, the government is to requisition 8 million masks per day, while lifting sale and export restrictions on the remaining 60 percent of capacity.
If people struggle to buy masks on the open market, they would still be able to purchase nine adult masks or 10 children’s masks every two weeks using their NHI cards.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said that its research institute has launched its first advanced artificial intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM) using traditional Chinese, with technology assistance from Nvidia Corp. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), said the LLM, FoxBrain, is expected to improve its data analysis capabilities for smart manufacturing, and electric vehicle and smart city development. An LLM is a type of AI trained on vast amounts of text data and uses deep learning techniques, particularly neural networks, to process and generate language. They are essential for building and improving AI-powered servers. Nvidia provided assistance
GREAT SUCCESS: Republican Senator Todd Young expressed surprise at Trump’s comments and said he expects the administration to keep the program running US lawmakers who helped secure billions of dollars in subsidies for domestic semiconductor manufacturing rejected US President Donald Trump’s call to revoke the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, signaling that any repeal effort in the US Congress would fall short. US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who negotiated the law, on Wednesday said that Trump’s demand would fail, while a top Republican proponent, US Senator Todd Young, expressed surprise at the president’s comments and said he expects the administration to keep the program running. The CHIPS Act is “essential for America leading the world in tech, leading the world in AI [artificial
DOMESTIC SUPPLY: The probe comes as Donald Trump has called for the repeal of the US$52.7 billion CHIPS and Science Act, which the US Congress passed in 2022 The Office of the US Trade Representative is to hold a hearing tomorrow into older Chinese-made “legacy” semiconductors that could heap more US tariffs on chips from China that power everyday goods from cars to washing machines to telecoms equipment. The probe, which began during former US president Joe Biden’s tenure in December last year, aims to protect US and other semiconductor producers from China’s massive state-driven buildup of domestic chip supply. A 50 percent US tariff on Chinese semiconductors began on Jan. 1. Legacy chips use older manufacturing processes introduced more than a decade ago and are often far simpler than
Gasoline and diesel prices this week are to decrease NT$0.5 and NT$1 per liter respectively as international crude prices continued to fall last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. Effective today, gasoline prices at CPC and Formosa stations are to decrease to NT$29.2, NT$30.7 and NT$32.7 per liter for 92, 95 and 98-octane unleaded gasoline respectively, while premium diesel is to cost NT$27.9 per liter at CPC stations and NT$27.7 at Formosa pumps, the companies said in separate statements. Global crude oil prices dropped last week after the eight OPEC+ members said they would
RSS