Agri-food chain adds NT$1.7tn to GDP: MOAYOUNG FARMERS: A ministry loan program has benefited more than 26,000 young adults getting into agriculture as of November last yearBy Esme Yeh / Staff reporterAgriculture and the agri-food industrial chain in 2024 generated gross value added of more than NT$1.74 trillion (US$55.3 billion) with a workforce of about 2 million people, accounting for 6.8 percent of GDP, the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) said on Tuesday. The gross value added of agriculture and the agri-food industrial chain increased by nearly 90 percent over the previous 15 years, with an additional workforce of 221,000 people, a growth of 12.5 percent over the period, it said. Photo: CNAThe value of the agriculture industry and agri-food industrial chain grew 89.1 percent from 2009 to 2024, it said. In 2024, the agriculture and the agri-food industrial chain accounted for more than NT$1.74 trillion, or 6.8 percent of GDP by production approach, marking another record high after it surpassed NT$1.6 trillion in 2023, it said. The workforce in the agriculture and the agri-food industrial chain in 2024 also hit a three-year high of about 2 million people, or 17.2 percent of the total national workforce, meaning that one in six were in agriculture and the agri-food industrial chain, the ministry said.

Analyst urges rethink of Taiwan’s defense tacticsBy Fang Wei-li and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writerThe military should abolish centralized deployment and instead adopt something like the US’ Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) to maximize survivability through dispersed deployment and mobile defenses, an Institute for National Defense and Security Research analyst said yesterday. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) demonstrated long-range rocket-strike capabilities during its “Justice Mission 2025” exercise on Monday and Tuesday. The Taiwan Dome would have high-level detection and interception capabilities, and is a part of an eight-year, NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.76 billion) special defense budget, he added. The dome system would prevent the military’s launch capabilities from being paralyzed if radar stations are crippled, Shu said. Asked whether Taiwan could establish a system similar to Israel’s Iron Dome, Shu said that missile interception is costly and its effectiveness is limited.

Stay for foreign national parents extended‘FRIENDLY SOCIETY’: The changes aim to help relieve the childcare burdens of new parents and is part of Taiwan’s efforts to embrace naturalized citizens, the ministry saidBy Lin Tse-yuan and Jason Pan / Staff reportersParents of citizens naturalized through marriage can now extend their stay in Taiwan to one year to help look after grandchildren, according to new regulations that took effect yesterday. “The government is working to protect the rights of our ‘new citizens,’ so restrictions are being loosened to allow foreign national parents of ‘new citizens’ to extend their visit if they qualify under the stipulated conditions,” it said. Foreign national parents of women who have been naturalized through marriage applying to extend their stay in Taiwan must present an official medical document confirming their daughter’s pregnancy and their expected due date, or the Maternal Health Booklet issued by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, it said. Allowing foreign national parents to stay longer in Taiwan is part of the nation’s efforts to embrace its new citizens, so that all families could feel the warmth of a more friendly society, the interior ministry said. The ministry urged foreign national parents to ask about the extension and for those who qualify to apply at National Immigration Agency offices or service stations.

KMT urges Lai to respect oversight amid unity callTHE ‘1992 CONSENSUS’: The KMT said it hoped for ‘reconciliation’ across the Strait, and that Taiwan and China belonging to ‘one China’ was beyond doubtStaff writer, with CNAThe Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday urged President William Lai (賴清德) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to show respect for legislative oversight, referring to the president’s call for cross-party cooperation in the new year. KMT spokeswoman Chiang I-chen (江怡臻) said Lai’s speech “failed to address any of the opposition party’s demands,” and that he had instead resorted to “emotional blackmail.”Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun, top, waves a Taiwanese flag at a flag-raising event at KMT headquarters in Taipei yesterday. Lai has repeatedly called for cooperation between the ruling and opposition parties in the name of unity, but he should first respect legislative oversight instead of simplifying differing opinions as “boycotts or confrontations,” she added. The opposition has asked Lai to answer questions in the legislature regarding details of the proposal. “The 1992 consensus means that both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one China, and this is beyond doubt,” she said.

Flights and shipping affected by Chinese drillsTrips for more than 100,000 international and domestic air travelers could be disrupted as China launches a military exercise around Taiwan today, Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said yesterday. The exercise could affect nearly 900 flights scheduled to enter the Taipei Flight Information Region (FIR) during the exercise window, it added. A notice issued by the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration showed there would be seven temporary zones around the Taiwan Strait which would be used for live-fire exercises, lasting from 8am to 6pm today. All aircraft are prohibited from entering during exercise, it says. Taipei FIR has 14 international air routes andBy Shelley Shan

Kenting finds hope in older travelersBy Tsai Tsung-hsien and Shelley Shan / Staff reportersTour operators in Kenting (墾丁) have seen a glimmer of hope for bringing visitors back to the once-popular travel destination in southern Taiwan, following an unexpected rise in older travelers. The number of tourists in Kenting peaked in 2014, when 8.37 million visited after the release of Taiwanese blockbuster film Cape No. While Kenting might have lost its appeal among young people, it has appeared to find its way into the hearts of older travelers, who neither care for uploading pictures to Instagram nor reading travelers’ reviews online. Local governments need to focus on attracting older travelers, aside from attracting young tourists or family travelers, Hsu said. Caesar Park Kenting general manager Kuo Hsuan-tso (郭軒作) said older travelers focus more on a sense of safety.

Chicken chain hit by soup-tainting vigilante attacksBy Jonathan Chin / Staff writer, with CNAA group on Wednesday evening dumped an unidentified powder into pots at 10 restaurants, targeting a sesame oil chicken chain in Taipei and New Taipei City, police told a news conference yesterday. Chang Ming-che (張銘哲), head of the New Taipei City Police Department’s Sixth Criminal Investigation Corps, said that police have arrested three suspects and that no restaurant patrons were affected. A suspect dumps an unknown substance into a vat of sesame oil chicken stew at a restaurant in the greater Taipei area on Wednesday. A police source commenting on condition of anonymity identified the chain as Chuang Chia Pan (莊家班) sesame oil chicken restaurants. The chicken stew chain owns all of its venues, with none operating as franchises, they said.

British national sentenced for cannabis cultivationBy Wu Sheng-ju and Jason Pan / Staff reportersA British national received a more than four-year sentence in a Keelung District Court ruling for cultivating cannabis and making related products. The English-language teacher, named Paul, bought cannabis seeds in Amsterdam while on a trip to Europe in 2023, hiding them in his luggage on his return to Taiwan, investigators said. Following a raid of the residence, the MJIB uncovered 63 cannabis plants, 23 seedlings, cannabis paste, indoor cultivation equipment and chemical fertilizer, the bureau said. Paul was quoted as saying that he previously had a habit of cannabis consumption, and therefore decided to grow cannabis for personal consumption. The court handed Paul a four-year, eight-month prison sentence, reduced from the minimum 10-year term prescribed by the act.

Cabinet highlights programs affected by blocked budgetBy Chen Yu-fu, Lin Tse-yuan and Jason Pan / Staff reportersDisaster mitigation projects, social welfare benefits, public transport subsidies, and many programs affecting society and people’s livelihood are in jeopardy because opposition parties refuse to pass this year’s general budget, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. It is the first time in Taiwan’s history that the general budget for the next year has not been approved before the end of the year. “We hope all parties can work together to approve the budget for people’s livelihoods, strive forward for our nation and cooperate in this new year,” Cho said. Premier Cho Jung-tai, left, and Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu gesture to each other during the national flag-raising ceremony yesterday at the Presidential Office in Taipei. “Cabinet agencies have done much to become a strong pillar of support for outlying counties and enhance their connections with Taiwan proper, creating numerous infrastructure projects to promote tourism and economic growth, and improve the livelihood of residents,” Cho said.

Institute develops resilient banana typeBy Yang Yuan-ting and Esme Yeh / Staff reportersThe Taiwan Banana Research Institute has developed a Panama disease-resistant banana variety, Tai-Chiao No. Photo courtesy of the Taiwan Banana Research InstituteThe institute continued to utilize the findings to cultivate the new disease-resistance banana variety, TC9, with the goal of bringing it to the global market. Most Panama disease-resistant Taiwanese banana varieties were found to have certain large chromosomal segments deleted, he said. Williams is the primary global commercial banana variety, largely grown in the Philippines and Latin America, but almost unable to resist Panama disease, Chiu said. TC9 is a cultivar developed based on Williams and has at least 70 percent resistance to Panama disease, she said.

Mataian River gets temporary bridgeON TIME: The contractor, which also built New Taipei City’s Danjiang Bridge, also began work on a new permanent bridge on Wednesday according to scheduleBy Shelley Shan / Staff reporterA temporary steel bridge over the Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) in Hualien County opened for traffic yesterday after the original bridge was destroyed by flooding on Sept. 23 last year. Torrential rain brought by the outer rainbands of Typhoon Ragasa led to the collapse of a barrier lake along the Mataian River, killing 18 people and causing massive infrastructure damage, including the bridge over the river. Vehicles drive on a temporary steel bridge over the Mataian River in Hualien County after it opened to traffic yesterday. Photo: Hua Meng-ching, Taipei TimesThe temporary bridge, which features one through lane and one slow lane in each direction, opened for traffic at 10am, one month earlier than initially scheduled. The riverbed access path, which was built before the temporary steel bridge, would be removed within one week for the Water Resources Agency to carry out dredging work, Lin said.

Shovel-wielding barber thrives on Africa’s social mediaAP, KIAMBU, KenyaSafari Martins led his client Ian Njenga into a sparse shack on the rural roadside in Kiambu, at the edge of metropolitan Nairobi. The popularity of Martins and other content creator barbers has come amid the breakneck growth of social media in Kenya. In January 2023, there were just 10.6 million social media users in the country, market research group DataReportal said. With monetization of social media content often benchmarked to Western digital advertising rates, finding success online can also bring a relative windfall to Kenyans. “Barbers get viral on social media, but I feel like they are not respected,” Martins said.

Chip exports drive record year for South KoreaCARS AND COMPUTERS: A year driven by South Korea’s tech industry and vehicle manufacturers helped them weather turbulent trade conditions with panache. AFP, SEOULSoaring global demand for semiconductors fueled by a boom in artificial intelligence (AI) sent South Korea’s exports to their highest-ever level last year, official data showed yesterday. Total exports last year were valued at more than US$700 billion, up 3.8 percent from the previous year, South Korean Ministry of Trade,Industry and Energy data showed. Semiconductor exports last month alone rose more than 40 percent year-on-year, posting gains for a 10th consecutive month and marking a record-high monthly figure. It “serves as an indicator of the South Korean economy’s solid resilience and growth potential,” he said.

Wiwynn, a server manufacturing arm of Wistron Corp (緯創) and a supplier of Nvidia Corp’s server racks, plans to invest US$220 million into its Mexican unit to boost cloud-based data center and data storage capacity, the ministry said. The company plans to finance its US unit, Wiwynn Technology Corp, with an additional US$250 million, it added. Photo: Liao Chia-ning, Taipei TimesContract notebook computer maker Compal plans to invest US$425 million in its US unit, Compal USA Technology Inc, to build its first server manufacturing plants there, the ministry said. Compal, which lags behind its local peers in tapping into the server market, plans to build its first US manufacturing hub in Taylor, Texas. It has leased a manufacturing facility for US$65.67 million and expects to begin volume production in the second half of this year.

US remains largest debtor to TaiwanGROWING OWINGS: While Luxembourg and China swapped the top three spots, the US continued to be the largest exposure for Taiwan for the 41st consecutive quarter The US remained the largest debtor nation to Taiwan’s banking sector for the 41st consecutive quarter at the end of September, after local banks’ exposure to the US market rose more than 2 percent from three months earlier, the central bank said. Exposure to the US increased to US$198.896 billion, up US$4.026 billion, or 2.07 percent, from US$194.87 billion in the previous quarter, data released by the central bank showed on Friday. Of the increase, about US$1.4 billion came from banks’ investments in securitized products and interbank loans in the US, while another US$2.6 billion stemmed from trust assets, including mutual funds,By Chen Cheng-hui