Officials defend performance of SOEs

The Ministry of Economic Affairs said on Saturday that the performance of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) under the ministry is primarily determined by rising energy costs in the global market, as well as the need to adjust to new business strategies.

Ministry officials said the enterprises must also comply with the government's policies and regulations on environmental protection.

The officials were responding to criticism by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) earlier in the day.

Lai said that SOEs had squandered NT$240 billion (US$7.18 billion) in taxpayer money between 2003 and last year due to idle facilities, inefficiency or poor management, and vowed to rigorously scrutinize the budget for state-owned enterprises in future.

The officials cited the example of Taiwan Power Co (台電), noting that it has set up power factories on Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and Lanyu, while the Chinese Petroleum Corp is setting up a low-sulphur refinery to complay with government policies on environmental protection.

Under a rejuvenization project for SOEs, the overall performance of the enterprises has markedly improved, officials said.

The pre-tax surplus of SOEs rose to NT$38.352 billion in 2004 from NT$21.713 billion in 2001, they said. Despite the soaring energy costs last year, the pre-tax surplus still amounted to NT$12.075 billion, higher than the goal of NT$7.645 billion, they said.