Minister of Finance Lin Chuan (
Lin said he "does not want to" retain his post even if the new premier wants him to stay.
"I need to take a rest after serving in a public post for more than five years. I think this is a good time to make this decision, allowing my successor sufficient time to accomplish the task," Lin told reporters.
Resuming his university teaching job is just one of the options he is considering, he said.
Lin, 54, became head of the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics in May 2000 after President Chen Shui-bian (
Seen as one of the core members of Chen's team, Lin was chief of the Taipei City Government's finance bureau when Chen served as Taipei mayor from 1994 to 1998.
Lin said that he has not yet reported his decision to Chen.
Asked whether he might take up the post of vice premier if such an offer is made, Lin said that if he did that, then he would be severely criticized.
Chen is scheduled to announce the appointment of former Democratic Progressive Party chairman Su Tseng-chang (
Having suffered from sciatica for at least a year, Lin said now he just wants to live a normal life, as serving as a government official is not normality.
His decision should take many by surprise as he has been rumored to be an ideal candidate for the post of vice premier because of his achievements in government. Lin's retirement would pose a problem for the new premier, as the Chen government is short of financial experts, especially those with a taxation background.
Over the past three years, Lin has successfully pushed forward the alternative minimum tax (AMT) scheme, the nation's first tax hike in nearly four decades. He has also helped the government carry out financial reform, halving the number of state-run banks to six last year.
SEMICONDUCTOR SERVICES: A company executive said that Taiwanese firms must think about how to participate in global supply chains and lift their competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said it expects to launch its first multifunctional service center in Pingtung County in the middle of 2027, in a bid to foster a resilient high-tech facility construction ecosystem. TSMC broached the idea of creating a center two or three years ago when it started building new manufacturing capacity in the US and Japan, the company said. The center, dubbed an “ecosystem park,” would assist local manufacturing facility construction partners to upgrade their capabilities and secure more deals from other global chipmakers such as Intel Corp, Micron Technology Inc and Infineon Technologies AG, TSMC said. It
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
India’s ban of online money-based games could drive addicts to unregulated apps and offshore platforms that pose new financial and social risks, fantasy-sports gaming experts say. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government banned real-money online games late last month, citing financial losses and addiction, leading to a shutdown of many apps offering paid fantasy cricket, rummy and poker games. “Many will move to offshore platforms, because of the addictive nature — they will find alternate means to get that dopamine hit,” said Viren Hemrajani, a Mumbai-based fantasy cricket analyst. “It [also] leads to fraud and scams, because everything is now
RSS