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EY authorises TSMC, Hon Hai to purchase vaccines
Courtesy of ICRT
The government is set to officially authorize private companies to purchase vaccines on its behalf.
An Executive Yuan spokesperson says TSMC and Hon Hai's Yong-lin Foundation will be empowered to negotiate purchase contracts for five million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine each directly from German manufacturer BioNTech.
Once the purchases are complete, the vaccines will be delivered to Taiwan and donated directly to the government here.
At the same time, the Taiwan government will continue talks with BioNTech directly about future vaccine supplies, with the help of the German government.
President Tsai Ing-wen met with Foxconn founder Terry Gou and TSMC chairman Mark Liu on Friday to talk about joining efforts to import five million doses of the vaccine each, which they will then donate the vaccine to the government.
The announcement comes after Gou expressed his wish to see Tsai in person, saying that "without the President's official directive, vaccine purchase can never truly begin.
The authorization comes after Gou said the German manufacturer had told him that it only deals with governments.
