The Govt Formally Agreed To Allow Two Of Taiwan’s Top Tech Firms To Represent It In Negotiations To Purchase Up To 10 Million Doses.
The Government Has Formally Agreed To Allow Two Of Taiwan’s Top Technology Firms To Represent It In Negotiations To Purchase Up To 10 Million Doses Of The Pfizer-Biontech COVID-19 Vaccine.
Executive Yuan spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) said in a statement yesterday morning that the government had on Friday signed legal agreements setting out the terms and conditions for the procurement process with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co’s (鴻海精密) Yonglin Charity and Education Foundation.
The deal was reached a week after it was announced that the two companies would be authorized to purchase up to 5 million doses each of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine from Germany, and donate them to the government upon delivery to Taiwan.
Hon Hai founder Terry Gou (郭台銘) has accused the government of taking too long to decide whether to let him buy 5 million doses of the vaccine to ease the country’s vaccine shortage, which became more urgent after a domestic COVID-19 outbreak began last month. Despite receiving formal authorization, it remains unclear whether either company will be successful in obtaining the vaccines.
The government has said it was close to securing 5 million Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses earlier this year, but blamed Beijing for “interfering” and causing the deal to fall through. Taiwan has signed contracts to purchase nearly 20 million vaccines from abroad: 5.05 million Moderna doses, 10 million AstraZeneca doses and 4.76 million unspecified brands through the COVAX global distribution program.
About 1.1 million of those doses have been delivered to date, but Taiwan has received 2.5 million doses of the Moderna vaccine donated by the US and 1.24 million AstraZeneca doses donated by Japan. The government has also signed contracts to buy 10 million doses of vaccines from two Taiwanese manufacturers. As of yesterday, 7.66 percent of Taiwan’s population had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, the Central Epidemic Command Center said.
This news was originally published at Taipei Times.