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Saturday, July 26, 2008

Forward the economy....

Lots of stuff out there today on Taiwan's economy. Reuters is reporting that Taiwan plans to open five sectors of its economy to Chinese investment:

Taiwan is aiming to open five sectors of its economy to mainland Chinese by the end of the year, as part of a campaign by a new China-friendly administration to boost growth, media reported on Saturday.

The five areas are the financial, economic, transport, human resources and land sectors, Taiwan's two Chinese language business dailies reported, citing Premier Liu Chao-shiuan.

Not included was the real estate sector, the Economic Daily reported, although the two-month-old administration of President Ma Ying-jeou has said it would eventually like to open that sector to mainland investors as well.
Not as fast as some would like. Wonder what they will do when the big bounce doesn't arrive -- when Chinese investors show themselves to be as cagey as all others in dealing with Taiwan. Ma save us!

Several media outlets have been reporting on the visit by representatives of Canadian indigenous groups. Aborigines on both sides of the Pacific have long cultivated contacts, and Canadian papers are reporting that Taiwan wants Canadian aboriginal expertise in managing casinos.
The Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority has signed a deal to manage up to three Native casinos in Taiwan. SIGA will start with one casino for the Thao Tribe, one of Taiwan's indigenous groups. SIGA will take up to 30 percent of revenues from the facility. "This is a global industry," a consultant was quoted as saying. "This is expertise SIGA already possesses. We have all the trainers." The Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations recently led a trade mission to Taiwan.
The Thao tribe, of which less than 300 remain, live around Sun Moon Lake, near the village of De Hwa (the sign there says "Welcome to Ita Thao" without any explanation of what Ita Thao is.) Is this a sign that our first casinos are going in at Sun Moon Lake? Just another reason not to visit the island's most boring tourist spot. Can't even swim there.....

The Cabinet today announced major energy policy initiatives. If carried out, they might have an effect. Of course, we are still build the two coal-fired power plants.

Finally, from the folder of Honorary Darwin Awards comes this hilarious tale of an engineer who lost over US$400,000 in a paid sex scam:

Looking for paid sex on the Internet is common in Taiwan, though illegal. The practice, called either yuan jiao, which means compensated dating, or enjo kosai, which means an exchange of sex for cash or gifts, originated in Japan but is now popular among adolescents in Taiwan.

After Huang had transferred the money to Yuan Yuan's bank account, he received a phone call from a man claiming that Huang had used the wrong procedure to wire the money and caused the bank's computer system to break down. He demanded Huang transmit 2 million Taiwan dollars in damages or he would be killed, the radio report quoted police as saying.

After the transaction, the man called again, accusing Huang of another system collapse, demanding more damages and claiming the bank accounts of several lawmakers had been destroyed and that would delay upcoming elections.

So Huang took out a mortgage on his apartment and transferred more money, only to receive another call, saying he had to pay more damages because he caused another computer breakdown, leading to trouble on the stock markets in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Wall Street.

Within one month, Huang had wired 13.86 million Taiwan dollars before he reported the fraud to police in Hsinchu City in western Taiwan.
How did this fellow ever get an engineering degree?

10 comments:

  1. Wonder what they will do when the big bounce doesn't arrive -- when Chinese investors show themselves to be as cagey as all others in dealing with Taiwan. Ma save us!

    Never been the greatest of optimists have you :).

    It'll be very interesting to survey the state of play in a few years' time. I'm willing to bet that Chinese investors will, over the medium and long term, show themselves to be a good deal less cagey than others. But then I've never been the greatest of pessimists.

    I think that it'll be looked back on as an significant - and beneficial - move.

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  2. I suspect it will be like other moves, significant but of limited benefit and not to the islanders at large. Did you notice what happened to FDI in the run up to the election?

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  3. Yeah, it depends on how one measures benefit.

    If you just consider the m shaped problem, I think it could well have a negative impact. I think most of the Chinese investment will be at the top and bottom ends.

    But I'm also willing to bet that there will be a disproportionately large amount of Chinese investment. This will be of significant benefit to the country as a whole.

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  4. how can i check when a Taiwanese have mainland passport too?

    i am woundering how of KMT have double citizenship and why do not send them back to China?

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  5. More open trades are always good. I don't see how could a liberal against more open trades...btw Taiwan stock is still too expensive, Jimmy Rogers said a few day ago that "he will considering buying Taiwan stock first time in his life when there is a panic sell off (he said that when the stock index is at 7000!)."

    How did this fellow ever get an engineering degree?

    It is called idiot savant. I know several Ph.D.s from top schools completely lack abilities to manage their daily lives. Ma actually could be in this group (i.e. can't pass bar), but we will see.

    how can i check when a Taiwanese have mainland passport too?

    i am woundering how of KMT have double citizenship and why do not send them back to China?


    Are you talking about PRC passport or Taiwanese I.D. issued by PRC? If it is the passport, don't worry, you can't not have it if you have duel citizenship. PRC does not allow duel citizenship and enforce strictly unlike most nations. Just go ask why majority of former Chinese students decided to live in the US still use their green cards instead of naturalization. That's because once you naturalized, China automatically cancel your Chinese passport, and getting a visa to visit China could be difficult.

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  6. Uh. Since when did a degree make one bright? Look at Mr. Ma for example. ;)

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  7. Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomed Friday a positive comment on relations between Taiwan and China in a joint communique recently issued by foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

    http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews+articleid_2439031&title=Taiwan_Welcomes_ASEAN.html

    ReplyDelete
  8. That engineer...

    Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

    That's what we'd like to call "book smarts" and lack of "street smarts."

    ReplyDelete
  9. thx arty.

    i found this one:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationality_Law_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China

    ReplyDelete
  10. Calligraphy teaches Chinese bankers strategy

    by Simon Rabinovitch; editing by Megan Goldin

    http://www.reuters.com/article/inDepthNews/idUSTON90255720080729?pageNumber=3&virtualBrandChannel=0

    gosh.. i loled my arse off.. chinese nazism at life..

    Rabinovitch and Goldin are biggest idiots in the whole world. how comes that they got this piece of shit into reuters?

    btw. confuciaism was never a doctrine for China's emperors.

    ReplyDelete

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