Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (
"[The Cabinet] would not fabricate [the number]," Chang said when fielding questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Te-fu (
"The number does not lie," he said, adding that the economic growth forecast made by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics was based on real figures.
Lin was questioning Chang over the government announcement on Thursday raising this year's GDP growth forecast to 5.46 percent, from its previous estimate of 4.58 percent growth. Lin said the upward adjustment was purely for election show.
"Commodity prices are soaring, but salaries are not. The public is feeling the pain and can't feel this so-called `economic growth,'" Lin said, while accusing the government of faking the number in hopes of improving the Democratic Progressive Party's chances in next year's elections.
Earlier yesterday, KMT Legislator Lee Jih-chu (
Speaking at a press conference, Lee accused the government of manipulating currency exchange and interest rates to benefit certain export industries and groups of people, while ignoring the plight of the public.
Chang, however, defended the government's action, saying it is concerned about the widening gap between the rich and the poor, adding that the Cabinet has devoted efforts to finding a solution to the problem.
Meanwhile, President Chen Shui-bian (
Speaking at a meeting of the Rotary Club in Taipei County, Chen said he had attained the goal he had set when running for the presidency in 2004 -- raising research and development expenditures to 3 percent of GDP, reducing the average unemployment rate to below 4 percent and lifting the average economic growth rate to more than 5 percent.
"I felt encouraged because I fulfilled my promise," the president said.
Exports were expected to hit a new record high of US$2.69 billion last month and reach US$25 billion for the full year, Chen said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts