Taipei to offer testing to migrants without papers
The new measure is to encourage unlicensed migrant workers to get tested at a time when Taipei has been affected by COVID-19 cluster infections, especially in Wanhua District (萬華), Ko said. People yesterday line up at a COVID-19 testing site in Taipei’s Wanhua District as medical workers arrive to open the station. Taipei would open four rapid testing stations in the Heping and Zhongxing branches of Taipei City Hospital, in West Garden Hospital, and at the Bopiliao Historic Block, he said. Taipei authorities have ordered all 172 hostess teahouses in Wanhua to shut down for three days for disinfection and to conduct contact tracing of confirmed cases. The Taipei Department of Environmental Protection yesterday announced a temporary halt to a single-use utensils ban, citing disease prevention concerns.
Source:Taipei Times
May 14, 2021 15:56 UTC
Citibank Taiwan, DBS Bank Taiwan hit for AML failings
Citibank Taiwan, DBS Bank Taiwan hit for AML failingsBy Kao Shih-ching / Staff reporterThe Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday fined Citibank Taiwan Ltd (花旗台灣) NT$10 million (US$357,194) and DBS Bank Taiwan (星展台灣) NT$6 million for breaches of the nation’s anti-money laundering (AML) regulations. The NT$10 million fine is the highest penalty that it has imposed on a domestic bank, the commission said. The commission yesterday fined Citibank Taiwan Ltd NT$10 million (US$357,194) and DBS Bank Taiwan (星展台灣) NT$6 million for breaches of the nation’s anti-money laundering (AML) regulations. Citibank Taiwan also failed to set up a system to specifically monitor clients that were cryptocurrency exchanges, also a breach of AML regulations, it added. DBS Bank Taiwan was penalized for similar breaches, the commission said.
Source:Taipei Times
May 13, 2021 15:56 UTC
Executive Yuan raises relief fund to NT$630 billion
Executive Yuan raises relief fund to NT$630 billionBy Jonathan Chin / Staff writer, with CNAThe Executive Yuan yesterday approved a draft bill to expand a COVID-19 stimulus package, increasing its spending limit from NT$420 billion to NT$630 billion (US$15 billion to US$22.5 billion) and extending it to June 30 next year. Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) approved the bill at a Cabinet meeting, Executive Yuan spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) told a news conference. The program duration should be extended by 12 months and the spending limit be increased by NT$210 billion, Lo cited Su as saying. The legislature might, if necessary, hold the reading in an extraordinary session, Lo Chih-cheng added. Taiwan People’s Party deputy caucus convener Ann Kao (高虹安) said that the Executive Yuan should report on effects of the program before proposing an increased budget.
Source:Taipei Times
May 13, 2021 15:56 UTC
Qisda Q1 net profit hits 13-year high
Qisda Q1 net profit hits 13-year highCONTINUED DEMAND: Qisda said that it is seeking to leverage the strengths of its businesses and industry partners in a ‘grand alliance’ to tackle component shortagesBy Lisa Wang / Staff reporterLCD monitor maker Qisda Corp (佳世達) yesterday reported that net profit in the first quarter reached the highest in about 13 years, thanks to strong demand for monitors and industrial devices amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Net profit increased to NT$2.61 billion (US$93.23 million) from NT$233 million last year and from NT$2.28 billion in the fourth quarter of last year, the company said. Qisda Corp chairman Peter Chen poses for a photograph at a news conference in Taipei on June 21, 2019. “As we said in March, this year will be a good year for Qisda, considering the faster pace of growth in revenue and net profit,” chairman Peter Chen (陳其宏) told investors in a virtual conference yesterday. Overall, revenue this quarter is expected to increase quarter-on-quarter by a double-digit percentage, Qisda chief executive officer Jasmin Hung (洪秋金) said.
Source:Taipei Times
May 13, 2021 15:56 UTC
Tax filing deadline for personal and business returns extended to June 30
Tax filing deadline for personal and business returns extended to June 30Staff writer, with CNAThe deadline for filing tax returns for last year and making payments has been extended by a month, to June 30, in part to prevent crowding at National Taxation Bureau offices amid a COVID-19 outbreak, the Ministry of Finance said on Wednesday. Hsinchu City Tax Bureau employees, left, check tax documents from behind a plastic partition in Hsinchu City on Wednesday. However, the June 30 deadline does not apply to property taxes, which people are encouraged to pay online after receiving their bill from the tax bureau, the ministry said. As of Sunday, more than 2 million people, or about 30 percent of the nation’s taxpayers, had filed their returns, ministry data showed. Last year, the ministry also extended the tax deadline due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Source:Taipei Times
May 13, 2021 15:56 UTC
Taiwan hit by rolling power outages
Journalists sit in near darkness amid a power cut at a news conference at the Central Epidemic Command Center in Taipei yesterday. Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua, center, Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs Tseng Wen-sheng, second left, and Taiwan Power Co officials bow at a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Taiwan Power Co’s Singda Power Plant is pictured in Kaohsiung’s Yongan District in an undated photograph. Idle power generators, including nuclear facilities, were brought online in an attempt to fill the gap left by the Singda outages, Chang said. Some of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) facilities reported brief power dips yesterday, but the power supply is currently normal, the company said in a statement.
Source:Taipei Times
May 13, 2021 15:56 UTC
DPP warns of virus disinformation
DPP officials have noticed an increase in such information, which aim to promote “a certain agenda,” she said, adding that the posts might be part of “cognitive warfare” efforts. Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei TimesPostings include calls for the government to purchase doses of Chinese-made COVID-19 vaccines on the popular messenger app Line and other platforms, Hsieh said. “In the past few years, we have seen many of these cognitive warfare efforts and disinformation campaigns,” Hsieh said. “Such posts occur increasingly at critical times, when people are concerned about the COVID-19 situation. The CECC frequently posts information on its Web site and updates its guidelines depending on the situation, she said.
Source:Taipei Times
May 13, 2021 15:56 UTC
Quanta reports strong Q1 profit, but fears shortages
Quanta reports strong Q1 profit, but fears shortagesBy Angelica Oung / Staff reporterQuanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), one of the world’s leading contract notebook computer makers, yesterday reported strong profit for the first quarter, but added that a severe shortage of key components could affect its business. “Our growth could be limited by a shortage of components,” Quanta spokesman Elton Yang (楊俊烈) told an online investors’ conference. The logo of Quanta Computer Inc is pictured outside the company’ headquarters in New Taipei City’s Linkou District on March 30 last year. Last year, Quanta shipped a record 59.8 million laptops, up 70 percent from a year earlier. Quanta posted a net profit of NT$7.1 billion (US$253.6 million) in the first quarter, down 17.72 percent quarter-on-quarter, but up 175.18 percent year-on-year.
Source:Taipei Times
May 13, 2021 15:56 UTC
F-16s returning from the US, source says
The jets had been part of training at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona and had briefly landed in Honolulu, where the photographer, Aeros808, had spotted them, a source said. An F-16 flies into Hualien Air Force Base from the US yesterday in preparation to receive an upgrade package of F-16V capabilities. Photo: Yu Tai-lang, Taipei TimesThe jets did not land in Guam, which had been done in 1996 when the US Air Force delivered F-16s to Taiwan, the source said, adding that the jets were refueled mid-air eight times. The air force had launched two F-16Vs to escort the jets, while officials cleared the perimeter of Hualien Air Base of unauthorized people. The jets are to undergo an inspection before their departure for Ching Chuang Kang Air Base, where they are to be upgraded, the source said.
Source:Taipei Times
May 13, 2021 15:56 UTC
COVID-19: Increase in cases affects cultural, political events
COVID-19: Increase in cases affects cultural, political eventsBy Sherry Hsiao / Staff reporterDozens of events across the nation have been canceled or postponed after the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Tuesday raised the COVID-19 warning level and announced stricter restrictions on public gatherings. The concert hall yesterday said it would tighten COVID-19 prevention measures including implementing enhanced social distancing and dividing employees into two isolated teams. The Taipei Fine Arts Museum is to manage crowd numbers and cancel guided tours through June 8, the museum said. The new measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 are also having an effect on political activity. Meanwhile, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would suspend its scheduled referendum campaign events, KMT Chairman Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said yesterday.
Source:Taipei Times
May 12, 2021 15:56 UTC
Commercial property sales surge 60% in Q1
Commercial property sales surge 60% in Q1By Crystal Hsu / Staff reporterTaiwan started off this year with the fastest increase in commercial property sales, which soared 60 percent from a year earlier to US$1.3 billion last quarter, a report by Real Capital Analytics (RCA) found on Monday. Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei TimesHowever, investment activity across major income-producing property types in the Asia-Pacific region slipped 12 percent year-on-year to US$29.6 billion, with only five of major commercial markets seeing higher deal volumes, it said. China overtook Japan as the most active commercial property market by trading value, which reached US$8 billion, representing a 4 percent increase from the same period last year, it said. The comeback in retail investment activity continued, with sales rising to US$5.7 billion, or a 2 percent increase from a year earlier, it said. The retail recovery corresponded with price falls across major markets, driven by retailers rationalizing their occupancy strategies throughout the past 12 months.
Source:Taipei Times
May 12, 2021 15:56 UTC
Aboriginal advocates demand name rights
Aboriginal advocates demand name rightsBy Chien Hui-ju / Staff reporterAboriginal rights advocates yesterday protested in Taipei, demanding that their names be written in the Roman alphabet on identification cards and official papers, and that Chinese versions of their name be dropped. A restaurant chain recently had a big promotion for people whose names contained “salmon” (鮭魚), “but when we want to use only Aboriginal names with our own script system, we cannot do so, because the law does not permit it,” said Savungaz Valincinan, a Bunun graduate student at National Dong Hwa University. Members of the movement “Call me by my Aboriginal name” hold a news conference outside the Ministry of the Interior in Taipei yesterday. The Aboriginal Language Development Act (原住民族語言發展法) guarantees the use of “Indigenous scripts” to record Aboriginal languages, which covers Aboriginal names, she said. “Our people were forced to use Chinese to write our names, but Chinese characters cannot be transliterated to closely match the sounds and meanings of our Aboriginal names,” said Bawtu Payen, an Atayal.
Source:Taipei Times
May 12, 2021 15:56 UTC
Ma keeps on parroting Beijing’s propaganda
Ma keeps on parroting Beijing’s propagandaBy Liou Je-wei 劉哲瑋During a speech on Saturday last week at a discussion forum titled “Resume cross-strait air travel: post-pandemic opportunity,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had criticized him for being pro-China and “selling out” Taiwan. Paradoxically, instead of reducing reliance on China, the government had increased Taiwan’s dependence on it, Ma said, adding that Taiwanese exports to China last year reached a historic high. This shows that President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration is more pro-China and has “sold out” Taiwan to a greater degree than he had, Ma said. In other words, far from demonstrating Taiwan’s increased reliance on China, last year’s record exports showed that China needs Taiwan. Ma sought to pin the blame for this entirely on the shoulders of Tsai, and called on her to return to the so-called “1992 consensus” so that dialogue between Taipei and Beijing could resume.
Source:Taipei Times
May 12, 2021 15:56 UTC
Vigilance urged as 21 new cases found
Vigilance urged as 21 new cases foundSIXTEEN LOCAL: Three COVID-19 infections are linked to a cluster at a gambling house in Yilan County, 10 to a case in New Taipei City and three had unclear sourcesBy Lee I-chia / Staff reporterThe Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday urged people to increase vigilance and thoroughly practice preventive measures against COVID-19 as it reported 16 locally transmitted cases of the disease. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said that 21 cases were confirmed in Taiwan yesterday: 16 local cases, four imported cases and one case undetermined. Local health departments are conducting contact tracing on the confirmed cases to identify other close contacts and the locations they visited, Chen said. 1,187 — a pilot — on a flight to Vietnam on Wednesday last week also tested positive, Chen said. The CECC also reported four imported cases — three migrant workers from the Philippines and a Taiwanese who returned from India.
Source:Taipei Times
May 12, 2021 15:56 UTC
Virus jitters send TAIEX plummeting
Virus jitters send TAIEX plummetingHELP? Minister of Finance Su Jain-rong speaks at a meeting of the legislature’s Finance Committee in Taipei yesterday. Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei TimesHowever, it lost its footing again, plunging 1,400 points to 15,165.27 points at 11:25am. Photo: Sam Yeh, AFPTurnover totaled NT$772.772 billion (US$27.64 billion), with foreign institutional investors selling a net NT$12.17 billion of shares, TWSE data showed. The ministry has exchanged views on the issue with Vice Premier Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津), the head of the fund committee, Su said, while declining to give clear-cut answers.
Source:Taipei Times
May 12, 2021 15:56 UTC