Government officials said yesterday at a national conference that water prices are too low and should be raised to meet water companies' costs in maintaining water-supply facilities.
"It is necessary to raise water prices to NT$20 per cubic meter," Vice Premier Lin Hsin-i (
"The hike in water fees can help prevent water waste by consumers," Lin said.
Currently, water fees are NT$7 to NT$9 per cubic meter. The rates have been frozen at the current level for nine years. The cost of processing water for household use, however, is NT$22 per cubic meter.
But Lin yesterday declined to specify when the government will raise water prices. He simply said the government has no plans for such a move in the near future. He didn't elaborate.
Although it is unknown when water prices will be changed, it is clear that the low price of water is unsustainable and has resulted in financial difficulties for the two major water suppliers in the nation.
According to government figures, Taiwan Water Supply Corp (自來水公司) and the Taipei Water Department (台北自來水事業處) saw their sales drop 1.73 percent and 3.05 percent last year, respectively, from the previous year's sales.
Because of the two companies' lack of funds, they cannot afford to repair old or worn water pipes that cause losses of 800 million tonnes of water each year. This is equivalent to two Feitsui Reservoirs annually, according to a recent Ministry of Economic Affairs report.
To reduce the water-leakage rate, Taiwan Water Supply Corp in March reported to the government that it planned to spend NT$3.5 billion to refurbish 670km of water pipe this year. In the past, the company allocated NT$200 million each year on pipe reconstruction, said Joseph Lyu (
The financial losses of the water companies, along with worsening water shortages in recent years, have forced the government to reconsider raising water fees.
"We'll propose a concrete measure on water-fee adjustment next year," said deputy director of Water Resources Agency Chen Shen-hsien (
Aside from the general price-hike plan, in March the agency proposed raising water fees for heavy users during dry periods, usually from November to April, from NT$0.5 to NT$1.5 per cubic meter.
If the proposal is passed, the companies will increase income by 30 percent to 40 percent during the dry season, Chen said.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
UNCERTAINTIES: Exports surged 34.1% and private investment grew 7.03% to outpace expectations in the first half, although US tariffs could stall momentum The Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) yesterday raised its GDP growth forecast to 3.05 percent this year on a robust first-half performance, but warned that US tariff threats and external uncertainty could stall momentum in the second half of the year. “The first half proved exceptionally strong, allowing room for optimism,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said. “But the growth momentum may slow moving forward due to US tariffs.” The tariff threat poses definite downside risks, although the scale of the impact remains unclear given the unpredictability of US President Donald Trump’s policies, Lien said. Despite the headwinds, Taiwan is likely
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
RSS