Print

Mail

wiki links

Elections offer a way out: S&P report

With caution reigning in the market ahead of Saturday's legislative elections, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said yesterday that the poll offered an "opportunity" to create a legislature that would focus more on the nation's fiscal and economic problems rather than politics.

"Taiwan has a chance of shaking off its label as among the region's least productive governments in 2008," credit analyst Tan Kim-eng (陳錦榮) said in a report.

The legislative elections will be held under a new "single-member constituency, two ballots" electoral system this year.

On a positive note, the electoral system changes and their potential impacts on government policies are likely to offer Taiwan an opportunity to see its long-term credit ratings improve from the current "AA-" level rating, Tan said.

But that upgrading will depend on the improvement of several government policies, including "corporate income tax reform, health insurance system, restrictions on economic ties with the mainland and banking sector consolidation," he said.

Still, there are structural deficiencies in the current political system that could hamper policymaking in Taiwan, especially the absence of bipartisan cooperation in the lawmaking process, S&P said.

If the government remains "split" after this year's legislative and presidential elections in March, Taiwan will only see its political paralysis continue, Tan said.
This story has been viewed 763 times.