President Chen Shui-bian (
President Chen, seeking re-election, made the remarks yesterday during visits to several temples in the Sungshan district to pray for a peaceful and properous new year. Yesterday was the fourth day of the first month of the Year of the Monkey, which traditionally is the day for Chinese to greet the arrival of the God of Fortune.
Chen, who started his political career by serving as a Taipei City councilman in the Sungshan and Hsinyi districts, asked for the continued support of his long-time followers in the March 20 presidential election.
Touting the performance of his government, Chen said that over the more than three years of his term, the nation's foreign exchange reserves have almost doubled from US$105 billion when he assumed office in May 2000 to US$206.6 billion at the end of last year.
Taiwan's businesses were adversely affected by the outbreaks of SARS in the second quarter of last year, the president noted, but the nation rebounded strongly in the third quarter to register economic growth of 4.18 percent. Fourth quarter growth stood at an even better 4.81 percent, the president said.
"I'm confident that economic growth this year will reach 5 percent, surpassing Singapore and Hong Kong," the president said.
Chen also said that the jobless rate in Taiwan dropped to 4.71 percent at the end of last year. This compares with 10 percent in Germany, 9.7 percent in France, 7.5 percent in Hong Kong and Canada, 5.9 percent in the US and Singapore, and 5.2 percent in Japan during the same period.
"I'm sure Taiwan's jobless rate could drop to 4.5 percent this year, and 4 percent next year," the president said.
Chen also said that the government has written off more than NT$1 trillion (US$29.67 billion) in bad debts over the past three years.
Non-performing loans of financial institutions have been reduced, and the structure of financial institutions has greatly improved, with the overall investment environment strengthening, he said.
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.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
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
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