Crypto Recorder
Date: March 18, 2018

The blockchain technology, since its inception in 2009 has seen a tremendous increase in innovations. Companies are striving to bring real-time solutions to problems in various industries, for example, the financial sector, big data industries, the education systems among others. IOTA (MIOTA), on the other hand, has reimagined the blockchain world and is making changes in areas that have never been tried before.

The world we live in now requires a constant trade of data between systems and machines. The machines that handle these resources are growing every day. The progress is continuously transforming the economy and has finally created a new economy referred to as machine to machine economy.

The blockchain, on the one hand, is viewed as the technology that will take over this machine to machine economy. On the side, it is not very scalable as witnessed by the Bitcoin blockchain. However, the developers of IOTA saw the problem and decided to create a solution.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/03/18
By: Huang Ya-chuan and William Yen

Taipei, March 18 (CNA) State-run oil refiner CPC Corp., Taiwan, said Sunday that it will

lower its domestic gasoline and diesel prices for this week, effective at midnight, to reflect lower global crude oil prices.

CPC said it will lower its gasoline and diesel prices by NT$0.1 (US$0.0034) per liter.

After the latest adjustments, prices at CPC gas stations nationwide will fall to NT$23.8 per liter for super diesel, NT$26 per liter for 92 octane unleaded, NT$27.5 per liter for 95 unleaded and NT$29.5 per liter for 98 unleaded, according to CPC’s website.

Crude oil last week was affected by an increase in United States crude oil production, as well as a rise in crude inventories in the U.S. market, causing the market to worry about oversupply and sending crude prices lower, CPC explained.    [FULL  STORY]

REASONABLE: Claiming that industrial users have expressed acceptance of an electricity rate increase, the minister of economic affairs said they should not pass it on to consumers

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 19, 2018
By: Staff writer, with CNA

Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) yesterday said that a moderate hike

in electricity rates of about 3.5 percent for big industrial users was reasonable, adding that some businesses have said an increase of about 3 percent would be acceptable to them.

Shen made the remarks on the sidelines of a consumer electronics trade show at the Taipei World Trade Center — which started on Friday and is to end today — in response to concerns that large industrial consumers subject to the rate hike might raise their prices due to increased electricity costs.

The ministry’s electricity price review committee on Friday announced that state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is to raise electricity rates by an average of 3 percent, or NT$0.0765 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), from April 1.

Electricity rates are to be raised from NT$2.5488 to NT$2.6253 per kWh, but households that use less than 500kWh and small businesses that use less than 1,500kWh per month would not have their electricity rates increased, meaning that more than 80 percent of users would remain unaffected by the rate hikes, the ministry said.    [FULL  STORY]

Radio Taiwan International
Date: 2018-03-17

A 3% hike in electricity prices is set to take effect for Taiwan’s biggest power users

starting April 1.

The price hike is expected to have no impact on most power users, with fewer than 20% set to see higher bills. Many of those facing higher prices will be large industrial users of power.

Several large companies responded to the price hike after it was announced on Friday.

Leading wafer-maker TSMC says that power accounts for less than 10% of its production costs. The company says the price hike should have only a limited impact on its operations. Fellow wafer-maker UMC also says the impact will be small, but that the company will seek to make up for higher costs by working to increase efficiency.    [FULL  STORY]

Deng will spend a week in Washington to talk with Commerce Department and USTR

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/03/17
By: Matthew Strong, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Minister without Portfolio John Deng (鄧振中) will leave for the

United States Sunday at the head of the delegation hoping to avert steel and aluminum tariffs.

President Donald Trump recently caused fears of a global trade war with his announcement that he would impose tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum products. Taiwan reportedly supplies about 5 percent of the U.S. imports likely to be hit by the tariffs.

Deng and his delegation will visit the Commerce Department and the U.S. Trade Representative during their stay in Washington, the Central News Agency reported.

The announcement of Deng’s trip also comes less than a day after President Trump signed the Taiwan Travel Act into law, a document which allows for higher-ranking meetings and visits by administration members of the two countries.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/03/17
By: Jiang Ming-yan, Chen Wei-ting and Frances Huang

Taipei, March 17 (CNA) Taiwan-based Regent Hotels Group will set up a joint venture with the United Kingdom’s InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) in a bid to speed up the pace for the Taiwanese hotelier to expand its reach in the global market.

Regent Hotels, known as Formosa International Hotels Corp. in Taiwan, said its board of directors has approved a proposal to establish the joint venture — Regent Hospitality Worldwide (RHW) — with the Taiwanese partner to hold a 49 percent stake and the British partner to own the remaining 51 percent.

Steven Pan (潘思亮), chairman of Formosa International Hotels, which bought the luxury brand Regent in 2010, will serve as chairman of RHW.

RHW will serve as a vehicle for Formosa International Hotels to extend its reach, while the Taiwanese firm will continue its expansion efforts in Taiwan.    [FULL  STORY]

Circular economy is something is an abstract concept so here are five real world examples of CE projects in Taiwan.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/03/16
By: Nate Maynard

Popsicles made from food waste, furniture repair, tool sharing, and computer recycling. The initiatives and strategies that build a circular economy vary greatly. Yet nobody seems to have a list of these projects. Did you know that Taiwan has well over 150 circular economy initiatives? We didn’t either until we helped organize a circular mapping event for the Circular Economy Club.

How do you easily share a tool to your neighbor, or purchase a responsibly made product? Last month, Green Drinks Taipei as part of the Circular Economy Club’s Mapping Week brought together a group of CE innovators from across Taiwan to put these initiatives literally on the map. What’s Green Drinks you ask? It’s an international environmental meetup group. myself and two colleagues (Martin Su and Rouyu Wu) have hosted monthly meetups in Taipei for nearly two and a half years.

The Circular Economy Club (CEC) is a non-profit network of over 2,600 CE professionals and organizations across 60 countries. In their own words “One of the challenges in implementing the circular economy framework is understanding what circularity means in practice, what is already working and what is not. The Mapping Week helps solve this challenge by gathering as many circular initiatives as possible in an open online directory.” With Taiwan focusing on the CE as a development area, we wanted to see just how many initiatives we could find.    [FULL  STORY]

Investors tried to withdraw their money after minimum investment required suddenly tripled but failed

Taiwan News 
Date: 2018/03/16
By: Renée Salmonsen, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is officially investigating an unregulated company backed by Asian investors, including Taiwanese investors.

The company, Financial.org, has investors from seven Asian countries: Taiwan, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, and the UAE, according to CNA. The company also sponsors a British Formula One team, Williams Martini Racing.

According to a Reuters report, the company gave the investors an ultimatum. If the investors do not increase their minimum investment from US$3,000 to US$10,000 by March 31, Financial.org will take 20% of their money and close their accounts.

The notice of the investment increase was posted on a member’s only section of the website. According to screenshots sent by investors to Reuters, investors who tried to withdrawal their money have been unsuccessful.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2018/03/16
By: Yu Hsiao-han and Frances Huang 

Taipei, March 16 (CNA) As a result of economic recovery and an increase in the number of visitors to Taiwan from Southeast Asian and Northeast Asian countries, the local tourism and catering industries currently have about 16,000 job openings, the Ministry of Labor (MOL) said Friday.

According to the MOL, employers in the two sectors have signed up with the online recruitment platform TaiwanJobs, operated by the ministry’s Workforce Development Agency (WDA), offering about 16,000 jobs.

The MOL said the new jobs include chefs, waiters and waitresses, reception personnel, hotel housekeepers as well as administrative staff positions.

The recovering local economy has provided a major boost to manpower needs in the two sectors, the MOI said.    [FULL  STORY]