The Ministry of Economic Affairs said that now is the best time for Taiwan to apply to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), after the nation on Wednesday submitted its application to New Zealand, the legal depositary for the 11-member trade bloc.
In a written report to the Legislative Yuan, the ministry said that it is scheduled to brief lawmakers on the impacts of joining the CPTPP on Taiwan’s industries at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee today.
The ministry is also expected to brief lawmakers about the government’s contingency plans for local industries in preparation for a potential accession to the CPTPP, the Central News Agency (CNA) reported yesterday.
Photo: CNA
The ministry’s report states that joining the CPTPP should have several strategic benefits for Taiwan, such as enhancing the nation’s foreign economic and trade links, bolstering the nation’s economic security, enhancing export competitiveness, encouraging foreign investment and facilitating amendments to domestic laws and regulations, CNA reported.
The CPTPP is a high-standard trade deal, and in the process of adjusting Taiwan’s domestic laws and regulations, it could stimulate innovation and research enterprises while further aligning Taiwan’s legal system with international standards, the ministry said.
Taiwan’s application to join the Japan-led trade bloc came after China also applied for membership on Sept. 16, prompting speculation that Taipei was worried that it would be more difficult for Taiwan’s eventual accession if China gained entry first.
The ministry said in the report that Taiwan’s importance in global supply chains is increasing, and being a member of the CPTPP could further consolidate Taiwan’s position in supply chains in the Asia-Pacific region.
Additionally, the 11 CPTPP members have close trade relations with Taiwan, as they together accounted for about 24.3 percent of Taiwan’s trade last year, the ministry said.
Their products accounted for 29 percent of Taiwan’s imports, with 21 percent of exports heading to those countries, while Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam are among the nation’s top 10 trading partners, the ministry said.
Overall, the ministry said that joining the CPTPP would pose short-term challenges for some domestic-oriented industries such as agriculture, but exclusion from the trade block would have a greater impact on Taiwan’s economy in the long run.
China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) plans to start mass-producing its most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip in the first quarter of next year, even as it struggles to make enough chips due to US restrictions, two people familiar with the matter said. The telecoms conglomerate has sent samples of the Ascend 910C — its newest chip, meant to rival those made by US chipmaker Nvidia Corp — to some technology firms and started taking orders, the sources told Reuters. The 910C is being made by top Chinese contract chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) on its N+2 process, but a lack
NVIDIA PLATFORM: Hon Hai’s Mexican facility is to begin production early next year and a Taiwan site is to enter production next month, Nvidia wrote on its blog Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the world’s biggest electronics manufacturer, yesterday said it is expanding production capacity of artificial intelligence (AI) servers based on Nvidia Corp’s Blackwell chips in Taiwan, the US and Mexico to cope with rising demand. Hon Hai’s new AI-enabled factories are to use Nvidia’s Omnivores platform to create 3D digital twins to plan and simulate automated production lines at a factory in Hsinchu, the company said in a statement. Nvidia’s Omnivores platform is for developing industrial AI simulation applications and helps bring facilities online faster. Hon Hai’s Mexican facility is to begin production early next year and the
Who would not want a social media audience that grows without new content? During the three years she paused production of her short do-it-yourself (DIY) farmer’s lifestyle videos, Chinese vlogger Li Ziqi (李子柒), 34, has seen her YouTube subscribers increase to 20.2 million from about 14 million. While YouTube is banned in China, her fan base there — although not the size of YouTube’s MrBeast, who has 330 million subscribers — is close to 100 million across the country’s social media platforms Douyin (抖音), Sina Weibo (新浪微博) and Xiaohongshu (小紅書). When Li finally released new videos last week — ending what has
TECH BOOST: New TSMC wafer fabs in Arizona are to dramatically improve US advanced chip production, a report by market research firm TrendForce said With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) pouring large funds into Arizona, the US is expected to see an improvement in its status to become the second-largest maker of advanced semiconductors in 2027, Taipei-based market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report last week. TrendForce estimates the US would account for a 21 percent share in the global advanced integrated circuit (IC) production market by 2027, sharply up from the current 9 percent, as TSMC is investing US$65 billion to build three wafer fabs in Arizona, the report said. TrendForce defined the advanced chipmaking processes as the 7-nanometer process or more
RSS