Crowds of Chinese piled on to trains yesterday in the biggest migration of humanity on the planet as hundreds of millions travel back to their home provinces for the Lunar New Year.
But some can't afford a family holiday. Many of the poor migrant workers who have flooded into China's cities have been cheated of their wages by their bosses, despite growing government efforts to stop the fraud.
The shadow of sickness has also threatened to dampen spirits this year.
Most Chinese were set to spend yesterday night, the eve of Spring Festival, at home with their families.
But migrant workers slumped over in the shadows of the Beijing railway station yesterday were not going home to their families.
"How can we go home? The boss ran off and didn't give us a cent," snapped Yang Jianguo, a 48-year-old from Hebei province sprawled on the floor.
Breathing fumes of sorghum-based moonshine, he launched into a classic account -- dubious builders, fly-by-night contractors, callous officials -- repeated yearly like a broken record by down-in-the-mouth migrants who fail to collect wages.
This Lunar New Year, China's new Communist leaders are trying as hard as ever to change that, observers say.
End-of-year gross domestic product figures announced on Tuesday saw year-on-year growth of 9.1 percent.
But many of the rural migrants who build China's highways and villas and contribute to that impressive growth are mired in poverty and debt, often because they received no wages.
Hu and Wen have both issued orders to find ways to dig workers and peasants out of debt, official media said.
State television has saturated the airwaves with melodramas about people finally collecting their unpaid wages.
Some must run bureaucratic obstacle courses before breaking through red tape, others simply wait, like one Shanxi province man who has just been paid for work he did on a road in 1993 to 1994.
Populist pressure in the government and state media are making a difference, official figures indicate. In Beijing alone, more than 99 percent of wages-in-arrears on record from last year had been reimbursed.
Try telling that to Yang and his friends.
"Lies," he said. "There is no law to protect us."
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
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