Official denies that IMF warned about government debts

A Cabinet official said yesterday that the IMF does not give "analyses, suggestions or warnings" about the state of Taiwan government debts.

Vice Minister of Finance Yang Tze-kaing (楊子江) said yesterday after a regular Cabinet meeting that the news report was based on a report on the public debts of emerging countries published by the IMF in last month's <

But the report "does not mention Taiwan and certainly does not warn Taiwan," he said. As Taiwan is not an IMF member, the nation's statistics are not analyzed by the IMF, he added.

Yang was responding to a misleading news report the previous day that gave the impression that the IMF had issued a warning about the government's outstanding debts.

A Chinese-language newspaper reported Tuesday that the nation's public debts could reach NT$3.4 trillion (US$100.59 billion) by next year, accounting for 33 percent of the GDP.