The government will be unable to balance the budget by 2011 because of the nation's fiscal difficulties, Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (
"If only the value-added tax [VAT] rate were raised by 1 to 2 percent, the government's goal to completely erase the deficits by 2011 would be attainable," Lin told a press conference yesterday morning.
But President Chen Shui-bian (
Lin yesterday admitted that the central government's tax revenues have been on the wane for the past few years as a result of tax cuts and the economic downturn, adding that "the likelihood of meeting the government's previous goal of balancing revenues and expenditures by 2011 is slim."
OPTIMISM
According to Hsu Kuo-chung (許國忠), the ministry's statistics department chief, the government's tax revenues declined by a record high of NT$127.5 billion last year, while Lin said that the central government has been sitting on annual debts of between NT$200 billion to NT$300 billion.
Lin, however, expressed an optimistic view towards the upcoming economic recovery, saying the government's tax revenues are likely to grow so as to improve the nation's fiscal siotuation after the local economy recovers.
The minister also boasted about the ministry's progress in financial reform, in spite of the failure to pass the Financial Restructuring Fund (金融重建基金) in the current legislative session.
Lin said that the ministry has made every effort to facilitate an exit system, which will force the government to address the problem of underperforming financial institutions as quickly as possible.
Vice Finance Minister Susan Chang (
AGGRESSIVE ACTION
For example, she said that any financial institution with an NPL ratio below 5 percent by the year's end will be rewarded with administrative convenience, while those with an NPL ratio above 5 percent will be penalized for failing to aggressively reduce their NPL ratio.
Gary Tseng (
According to Tseng, the nation's bad-loan ratio is nearing the 5 percent target while the nation's CAR currently averages about 10 percent.
Excluding loans under observation, the nation's NPL ratio was 5.01 percent, or NT$716.9 billion, in November, Tseng said, saying that the figure will have gone even lower last month.
However, if loans under observation are included, the bad-loan figure stands at 7.02 percent, or NT$1 trillion, as of last month.
As for the CAR, Tseng said that currently there are only six banks with CARs under the 8 percent target, including the Bank of Overseas Chinese (
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
Clambering hand-over-hand, sweat dripping into his eyes, a durian laborer expertly slices a cumbersome fruit from a tree before tossing it down to land with a soft thump in his colleague’s waiting arms about 15m below. Among Thailand’s most famous and lucrative exports, the pungent “king of fruits” is as distinctive in its smell as its spiky green-brown carapace, and has been farmed in the kingdom for hundreds of years. However, a vicious heat wave engulfing Southeast Asia has resulted in smaller yields and spiraling costs, with growers and sellers increasingly panicked as global warming damages the industry. “This year is a crisis,”