The Cabinet will be reshuffled early next year if the nation’s economy shrinks more than 5 percent this year in spite of the government’s plan to boost investment in infrastructure, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) said yesterday.
During a question-and-answer session with Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬), the premier said the government’s special four-year budget request totaling NT$500 billion (US$14.35 billion) was expected to help improve the nation’s economic growth by 1.02 percentage points each year.
Implementing the budget proposal could keep economic growth for this year at the expected minus 2.97 percent, the premier said.
On Wednesday last week, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said the economy contracted a record 8.36 percent in the final quarter of last year and was expected to shrink by a record 2.97 percent this year.
“If the plan completely fails, we will shoulder all responsibility for the failure because the plan was proposed by the Cabinet,” Liu said. “I think President Ma [Ying-jeou (馬英九)] would not accept such results. If we fail to achieve the goal we set, I know what I should do.”
In a question-and-answer session with Chinese Nationalist Party Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) later yesterday, Liu said the Cabinet had continually improved its execution of policies.
He declined to say which Cabinet official he had the most confidence in.
Taiwanese Olympic badminton men’s doubles gold medalist Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and his new partner, Chiu Hsiang-chieh (邱相榤), clinched the men’s doubles title at the Yonex Taipei Open yesterday, becoming the second Taiwanese team to win a title in the tournament. Ranked 19th in the world, the Taiwanese duo defeated Kang Min-hyuk and Ki Dong-ju of South Korea 21-18, 21-15 in a pulsating 43-minute final to clinch their first doubles title after teaming up last year. Wang, the men’s doubles gold medalist at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, partnered with Chiu in August last year after the retirement of his teammate Lee Yang
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
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