The central bank toughened its monetary policy yesterday, hiking its benchmark interest rate by 0.125 percentage points and ordering lenders to put aside more saving reserves in an attempt to curb inflation stoked by surging fuel, food and raw material prices.
It was the 16th consecutive quarter since October 2004 that the monetary regulator had adjusted raised the rates as it seeks to stabilize commodity prices without hurting efforts by the new government to shore up domestic demand and the economy.
“It is the central bank’s prime duty to maintain stability of consumer prices,” Governor Perng Fai-nan (彭淮南) told a news conference after a quarterly board meeting. “We have not stayed on the sidelines in the battle against inflation as some in the media have claimed.”
Perng said the central bank decided to raise the discount rate, at which local banks borrow 10-day loans from it, by 12.5 basis points to 3.625 percent, starting today.
Meanwhile, the rates on accommodations with collateral and without collateral will rise to 4 percent and 5.875 percent, respectively, up from their current 3.875 percent and 5.75 percent.
Perng said he hoped the adjustments could contain consumer price growth that reached 3.66 percent in the first five months of this year and is expected to advance further as utility costs are due to rise by 12.6 percent next month.
The central bank also required lenders to set aside more cash in reserves, lifting the ratio on passbook savings by 1.25 percentage points and term deposits by 0.75 points, beginning July 1, Perng said.
He added that the move, intended to check liquidity in the market, will not harm the economic stimulus package proposed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration to boost private consumption and investment.
However, Perng voiced reservations the spending program will push the GDP up to 4.78 percent for this year as the nation’s statistics agency has predicted.
The central bank put the figure at 4.66 percent, he said.
Also See: Central bank to continue fiscal tightening: analysts
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
RSS