Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/03/28
By: Wang Shu-fen and Evelyn Kao

Taipei, March 28 (CNA) Tigerair Taiwan, the country’s only domestic budget airline, said

Wednesday that it has been nominated for this year’s World Travel Awards.

The budget carrier, a subsidiary of Taiwan’s China Airlines, said it has been nominated for the first time in the categories of Asia’s Leading Low-Cost Airline and Asia’s Leading Most Efficient Low-Cost Airline.

Online voting is now open for the 2018 World Travel Awards — Asia Region and will conclude July 23 at 7 a.m. Taiwan time.

Established in 1993, the World Travel Awards are the most prestigious in the global travel industry.    [FULL  STORY]

Taiwan News
Date: 2018/03/27
By:  Central News Agency

Taipei (CNA) – A Taiwanese delegation attending the 46th small and medium enterprise (SME) working group meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in Brunei will update the country’s initiative to help SMEs with digital transformation.

The delegation is headed by Hu Pei-ti (胡貝蒂), deputy director-general of the Small and Medium Enterprise Administration under the Ministry of Economic Affairs.

At the APEC SME working group meeting in Bandar Seri Begawan from Monday to Wednesday, Taiwan will propose the fourth phase of the APEC O2O (online-to-online) Initiative, which has been endorsed by Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Chile, the bureau said in a statement.

The group will seek APEC subsidies for the implementation of the next phase of the initiative, which was conceived to empower SMEs to embrace digital transformation in the digital era, the bureau said, describing the initiative as one of Taiwan’s “concrete contributions” at APEC.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-03-26

The finance minister, Sheu Yu-jer, said Monday that Taiwan’s stocks are stable. That’s

despite a recent drop due to fears of a US-China trade war. President Donald Trump imposed duties on foreign aluminum and steel and plans to set new tariffs of up to US$60 billion for Chinese imports. In response, China has also listed 128 US products with an import value of US$3 billion that will be hit with new tariffs.

At the legislature on Monday, Sheu said Taiwan’s stocks are still stable. The central bank says however that two thirds of Taiwan’s economy is linked to the global supply chain, so the country will be greatly affected if there is a trade war. The concerns have caused stocks to fall in the past two days, as have other Asian markets.

Sheu said the government will not use the national stabilization fund to stabilize the stock market. That’s because the TAIEX remains over 10,000 points. In the past the fund was used when the TAIEX dropped to around 7,000 points.    [FULL  STORY]

A new ‘Taiwan-Merck Biopharma R&D and Training Collaboration Program is set to launch in May
 
Taiwan News
Date: 2018/03/26
By: Duncan DeAeth, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research institute (ITRI), one of

the world’s leading research centers for smart technologies, signed an MoU with the American chemical company Merck, on Monday, March 26 in Taipei.

The agreement announces the establishment of the “Taiwan-Merck Biopharma R&D and Training Collaboration” set to launch in May, at the Guangfu Innovation Campus in Hsinchu, Taiwan, according to an official press release.

As Taiwan moves forward with its ambitious “5 +2” industrial innovation program, Merck and ITRI’s new partnership expects to be a leader in the rapidly developing biopharma sector, which is anticipated to value US$278 billion by the year 2020.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/03/26
By: Liao Yu-yang and S.C. Chang

Taipei, March 26 (CNA) Electricity users are set to see a NT$5 (US$ 0.17) rise for every

kilowatt-hour they consume in the future, given the averaged-out cost of building the fourth nuclear power plant and a government program to increase the use of green energy, Minister of Economic Affairs Minister Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) said Monday.

He was responding to lawmakers who asked for his estimate of how the NT$283.2 billion construction cost for completing and then mothballing the No. 4 Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei will affect electricity bills for users.

In step with the Democratic Progressive Party government’s plan to achieve its policy goal of a nuclear-free homeland by 2025, Taiwan is also increasing the proportion of recyclable energy to 20 percent of all energy use. The other 50 percent will be supplied by natural gas and 30 percent by coal.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-03-24

Over 200 Malaysian businesspeople based in Taiwan gathered in Taipei Wednesday for a

celebration of the Lunar New Year.

The event was organized by the Malaysian prime minister’s special envoy to East Asia, Tiong King Sing, and two Malaysian business organizations. It featured touches of Malaysian culture including Malaysian dancing, music, and cuisine. Tiong wished the gathered businesspeople success and told them to work for Malaysia.

K.C. Lau, the president of one of the organizing groups, said that bringing Malaysians in Taiwan together is his organization’s goal. Lau said he hopes to have a similar gathering every year in the future.    [FULL  STORY]