The Ministry of Finance yesterday began publishing a monthly Web-based “Local Government Debt Clock” to remind local government agencies to watch their spending, with total public debt standing at NT$814.86 billion (US$27.18 billion) as of the end of last month.
Residents in Kaohsiung shouldered the heaviest debt burden, with public debt totaling NT$212.94 billion at the end of last month, translating into NT$76,700 per capita, the highest level among all local governments, ministry data showed.
The Miaoli County Government posted the second-highest debt with NT$71,000 per person, followed by the Taipei City Government with NT$62,000 per capita, statistics showed.
However, long-term debt — outstanding debt with a maturity of more than one year — for Yilan County, Miaoli County and Hsinchu at the end of May accounted for 70.57 percent, 57.59 percent and 49.14 percent of local authorities’ annual expenditure respectively, exceeding the statutory debt ceiling of 45 percent, a National Treasury Agency statement showed.
These results indicated that these three local governments posted the worst financial conditions of all, the agency said.
In related news, tax revenues increased 8.9 percent year-on-year to NT$342.2 billion, bringing overall revenue for the first six months to NT$1.045 trillion, up 4.8 percent year-on-year, the ministry said in its monthly report yesterday.
The NT$1.045 trillion level accounted for 106.2 percent of budget allotment, reflecting tax revenue had been higher than expected in the first half, the report said.
“The strong performance of individual income tax was the main driver raising overall tax revenues,” Hsu Ray-lin (許瑞琳), deputy director of the ministry’s statistics department, told a press conference.
Revenue from individual income tax rose 21.9 percent year-on-year to NT$275.1 billion in the first six months, marking the highest level ever recorded for that period, the report’s data showed.
However, securities transaction tax revenues marked the lowest level since 2005 to total NT$38.3 billion in the first half, down NT$10.8 billion, or 22 percent, from the previous year, marking the sharpest fall among all tax brackets, data showed.
Hsu said the ministry remained optimistic that tax revenues could reach the government’s goal of NT$1.823 trillion, but securities transaction tax revenues might fail to achieve the ministry’s budget allotment at NT$126.5 billion this year.
To find a comprehensive solution to national financial problems, Minister of Finance Chang Sheng-ford (張盛和) led the ministry’s task force on national taxation and finance in their first meeting in Kaohsiung yesterday.
Chang said the ministry is focusing on possible measures to activate state-owned assets by operating models of build-operate-transfer and private-finance-initiative over the next four years.
“The ministry expects to launch 20 projects under these two models in four years,” Chang told reporters after the meeting.
The successful execution of the proposed projects might raise national coffers by NT$30 billion a year, Chang added.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
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