Three months after President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office, a majority of executives from the nation’s top 500 corporations assigned his administration a neutral score, with a sizable number bearish about their business prospects, a survey released yesterday showed.
The survey, conducted by China Credit Information Services Ltd (CCIS, 中華徵信), showed that only 15 percent of corporate managers were satisfied with Ma’s performance, while 30 percent said they found the new government disappointing.
As many as 50 percent of respondents expressed a neutral sentiment, with the remaining 5 percent refusing to answer, said the survey, which interviewed 354 business executives by telephone between Aug. 1 and Aug. 10.
CCIS general manager David Chang (張大為) said the survey showed there was ample room for improvement in fiscal, personnel and marketing management within the administration.
Pointing to the NT$130 billion (US$4.16 billion) public works program, Chang said that many economists questioned its necessity and effectiveness in spurring domestic demand. Moreover, Chang said the Cabinet seemed to be failing in explaining its policies, adding that Cabinet spokeswoman Vanessa Shih (史亞平) shared the blame in this regard.
On personnel management, Chang said the Ma administration should pay more attention to criticism leveled at policymakers involved in cross-strait matters, as they did not seem to see eye to eye with the president on easing trade regulations.
CCIS editor-in-chief Liu Jen (劉任) said that while welcoming measures to attract domestic and foreign capital, the top 500 corporations cared more about deregulation that would help them link up to the world.
Liu said that the companies surveyed posted NT$23.56 trillion in profits last year and had more than 1.28 million employees.
The survey said only 38.7 percent of respondents were optimistic about profit growth in the coming two years. The number dropped from 48.5 percent in January and 74.2 percent from last year, the survey showed.
Nickolas Hsu (�?, CCIS business credit director, attributed the pessimism to the global slowdown and surging oil prices, which have hurt profits. He said the respondents did not expect to see any impact from the deregulation this year, but believed their companies would put up a better showing year-on-year during the second half.
Taiwan’s rapidly aging population is fueling a sharp increase in homes occupied solely by elderly people, a trend that is reshaping the nation’s housing market and social fabric, real-estate brokers said yesterday. About 850,000 residences were occupied by elderly people in the first quarter, including 655,000 that housed only one resident, the Ministry of the Interior said. The figures have nearly doubled from a decade earlier, Great Home Realty Co (大家房屋) said, as people aged 65 and older now make up 20.8 percent of the population. “The so-called silver tsunami represents more than just a demographic shift — it could fundamentally redefine the
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
Businesses across the global semiconductor supply chain are bracing themselves for disruptions from an escalating trade war, after China imposed curbs on rare earth mineral exports and the US responded with additional tariffs and restrictions on software sales to the Asian nation. China’s restrictions, the most targeted move yet to limit supplies of rare earth materials, represent the first major attempt by Beijing to exercise long-arm jurisdiction over foreign companies to target the semiconductor industry, threatening to stall the chips powering the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. They prompted US President Donald Trump on Friday to announce that he would impose an additional
China Airlines Ltd (CAL, 中華航空) said it expects peak season effects in the fourth quarter to continue to boost demand for passenger flights and cargo services, after reporting its second-highest-ever September sales on Monday. The carrier said it posted NT$15.88 billion (US$517 million) in consolidated sales last month, trailing only September last year’s NT$16.01 billion. Last month, CAL generated NT$8.77 billion from its passenger flights and NT$5.37 billion from cargo services, it said. In the first nine months of this year, the carrier posted NT$154.93 billion in cumulative sales, up 2.62 percent from a year earlier, marking the second-highest level for the January-September
RSS