from the World-Watch dept.
An brief item item on the eTaiwanNews.com website ("Nanotechnology program aims to make NT$300b", 24 June 2002) says the Taiwan government "will pump NT$23.1 billion (US$679.41 million) into nanotechnology research in the next six years in hopes of creating a NT$300 billion (US$8.82 billion) industry by 2008, the National Science Council said [on 23 June]. Under a National Nanotechnology Initiative, mapped out by the NSC, the government will help more than 800 companies probe the new frontiers of an emerging high-tech industry."
The report also notes: A prominent NNI feature is a national nanotechnology center, which will be one of the world's best institutes of research in that high-tech field. Commercialization of the new technology is expected to begin in 2004, the NSC spokesman said. "In that year," he added, "Taiwan hopes to generate at least NT$70 billion (US$2.05 billion) in sales of nanotechnology products."
