Lin Chong-pin, (林中斌) vice chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council (行政院大陸委員會), said yesterday that signs China may be climbing out of seven years of slowing economic growth would give Beijing officials greater flexibility in handling cross-strait ties.
Speaking to reporters at the MAC's regular news conference, Lin said that strong demand for exports had boosted China's economic growth in the first six months.
He added that if this trend continues, it is possible that China's annual GDP could exceed last year's 7.1 percent.
That would break the downward slide that began after 1992 when China's GDP was measured at roughly 14 percent, Lin said, and it would be "an extremely important turn of events for China."
"An improved economic climate would focus more attention on the reform-minded economic planners and indirectly boost cross-strait ties," Lin said.
The easing of domestic economic burdens would allow high-level officials "greater flexibility in dealing with cross-strait problems," Lin said.
Chinese officials announced on Wednesday that strong export demand had boosted GDP growth 8.2 percent in the first half of 2000.
In related news, Tsai Ying-wen (
During interpellation at the legislature, Tsai responded to KMT Lawmaker Lin Yaw-shing's (
Tsai added that she believed Lin was also not a member and said if he was, she was confident that the country's intelligence services would have informed her.
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TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day