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Editorial: Economics picks boost confidence

The last installment of Cabinet appointments was finally announced yesterday, with Lee Yung-san (李庸三) taking over the Ministry of Finance and Christine Tsung (宗才怡) becoming economics minister. Like vice premier-designate Lin Hsin-yi (林信義), both of them hail from the business sector. The appointments are refreshing and worthy of the word "creative."

Led by people from the business sector ,the financial and economic agencies can break free from both the traditional bureaucratic style of career officialdom and the constraints of the academics' ivory tower. Their pragmatism and practical experience might create a new milieu. We are willing to harbor cautious but optimistic expectations of the new "economic" Cabinet.

Economic affairs minister-designate Christine Tsung, for example, has led China Airlines (華航) for one-and-a-half years. The CAL staff initially resisted her leadership, but she turned the money-losing CAL into a profitable company. This month, she is also on Fortune magazine's "People to Watch" list for this year. The story of how she helped CAL make a remarkable comeback is simply the Taiwan version of how Gordon Bethune salvaged Continental Airlines in the US.

Bethune received kudos in international airlines circles for his book From Worst to First, published in 1998. However the air-transport business was hit hard last year by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and Continental Airlines was in crisis once again. Tsung experienced similar problems, but she still managed to make CAL turn a profit. In this respect, she is even more qualified than Bethune to write a book with such a title.

Tsung's example tells us that one must use extraordinary measures to salvage a debt-ridden, wobbling old company. The DPP government has inherited the mess left behind by the previous KMT government, including an incompetent bureaucracy and a do-nothing government culture. On top of that are the international economic decline and the inexperience of the new government officials. Such complex factors have caused the DPP government to fall far short of people's expectations in salvaging the economy.

To work on the economy under these difficult circumstances, one naturally must employ new personnel with ability and also push for extraordinary measures. In fact, there is no great difference between governing a country and running a company. What we need now is a team of managers who can run Taiwan Inc.

External rather than domestic factors have been behind Taiwan's economic decline over the past 20 months. It is irresponsible for the opposition parties to lay all the blame on the DPP. Taiwan's economic doldrums are also different from the "balance-sheet recession" that Japan has experienced over the past decade. Problems such as bad loans are less serious in Taiwan's financial system than they are in Japan's.

Once the international economic situation improves, Taiwan's resilient small and medium-sized companies will have a chance to make a comeback. With the new Cabinet team taking the lead, creating new business opportunities and coordinating their policies with industry, an economic recovery is not impossible in Taiwan over the next two years.

However, companies seek profit through business efficiency -- a point that is different from running a government. Apart from pursuing short-term interests, a country also needs to lay the foundations for long-term and sustainable development.

Therefore, apart from subtlety and creativity, Taiwan also needs innovation and foresight to lay down sustainable objectives and policies.

We hope the new financial and economic team will not only work for the short-term goal of economic recovery, but also build the foundations for a second Taiwanese economic miracle. Only then can Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) government live up to the people's expectations.
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