Public debt remained stable in the third quarter of the year at an average of NT$204,000 (US$6,778) per person, according to statistics published by the Ministry of Finance yesterday.
The figures show that central government debt that has been outstanding for more than one year totaled NT$4.6 trillion, while the level of debt outstanding for less than one year stood at NT$131.7 billion. The debt burden per capita is calculated by adding these two figures and dividing by the total population.
Meanwhile, Minister of Finance Lee Sush-der (李述德) is scheduled to leave for Honolulu, Hawaii, tomorrow, where he will attend an APEC finance ministers’ meeting.
The APEC ministerial meeting, the 18th of its kind, will start on Thursday as part of the APEC annual summit of economic leaders, which will focus on economic growth and financial reform.
The ministry said Lee would report on Taiwan’s economic prospects, as well as the economic outlook for the Asia--Pacific region as a whole.
He is also scheduled to present a briefing on Taiwan’s policies to encourage private sector investment in infrastructure projects and the circulation of financial knowledge and services.
Lee will hold talks with counterparts from other APEC economies on the sidelines of the one-day meeting, the ministry said.
The delegation will also include officials responsible for taxation, customs and state property affairs and representatives from the Financial Supervisory Commission.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
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