US officials unveiled new steps on Monday to free up credit for crisis-hit small businesses a day after a meeting of top global policymakers pledged further efforts to tackle the economic malaise.
The US Treasury said it will move to ease a credit freeze to small businesses by pumping up to US$15 billion into the sector.
The unusual effort to buy up securities linked to small business loans aims to “jump-start” credit in the sector, which has been frozen because investors are unwilling to purchase bundled loans that are “securitized.”
US President Barack Obama, discussing the new effort, said it was being launched in response to a situation where “small business owners are really struggling even though they’re maintaining profitable businesses [because] their credit lines are being pulled.”
“This is still just going to be a first step in what is going to be a continuing effort to make sure that people get credit out there,” he said.
The action by the Treasury comes on top of a move by the Federal Reserve to pump up credit for business and consumers hurting from a global credit crunch, with the banking system reeling from massive losses linked to the US housing meltdown.
The move came after finance chiefs from the G20 economies meeting in the UK over the weekend to prepare for a summit on April 2 said their countries would take “whatever action is necessary” to fight the crisis.
But US appeals for governments in other leading economies to pump more public money into economic stimulus packages have been received coolly by France and Germany, which see tighter regulation as the solution.
CHINA’S AGREEMENT
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he believed China would agree on the need for new fiscal and monetary measures to tackle the global downturn at the upcoming G20 summit.
Brown was speaking after talks with European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso to prepare for the summit in London of the leading and fastest-emerging economies, which China will attend.
“I think there will be an agreement with China on the need to reform our international institutions to make them more adequate for the challenges of the times, and an agreement on the fiscal and monetary effort that is needed to get us through this downturn,” Brown said.
In Japan, embattled Prime Minister Taro Aso convened a panel of experts to gather ideas for a new stimulus package that media reports said may total about US$200 billion.
The talks started as the Cabinet Office in its latest monthly report said Japan’s economy was still “worsening rapidly” and “in a severe situation” — the same overall economic assessment as in the previous month.
This month’s report said corporate profits, exports and industrial output were all “decreasing very substantially,” the employment situation was “getting worse rapidly” and private consumption was “decreasing modestly.”
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary