The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it planned to call a second provisional legislative meeting on Aug. 16 to pass the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) with China.
Caucus secretary-general Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) said KMT lawmakers hoped to hold the provisional session from Aug. 16 to Aug. 31 in a bid to pass the ECFA and a cross-strait copyright protection pact, as well as amend related laws.
During the first provisional session, pan-blue lawmakers agreed on July 9 to refer the ECFA and the copyright deal to a one-month cross-party negotiation period and to allow the pacts to skip a preliminary review, triggering a walkout by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers.
Under legislative rules, the legislature has to call a vote on a bill after the negotiation period ends.
Lin said the KMT caucus would also include three other proposals on next month’s agenda that would allow Chinese students to enroll in Taiwanese universities and give recognition to Chinese educational credentials. All three proposals are controversial.
However, the caucus will not seek to include a proposed amendment to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) in the agenda because the bill remains “too controversial,” Lin said.
“Local governments have not reached a consensus [as to how to amend the act], so everyone still needs to communicate, but the three bills concerning Chinese students will be included in the agenda because the bills have been stalled for two years,” he said.
Lin said it remains uncertain whether the bill that would reform the National Health Insurance system will be part of agenda.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said the KMT caucus had failed to properly prioritize items on the agenda.
The DPP caucus has a different set of priorities for the session because it believes priority should be given to revising the Public Debt Act (公共債務法) and the Act Governing the Allocation for Government Revenues and Expenditures, he said.
More attention should be paid to local government budgets and other financial issues, with the year-end elections around the corner, he said.
“These proposals should be handled first, but instead the KMT wants to put the cart before the horse and first handle the laws concerning Chinese students,” Ker said.
While the DPP caucus will end its boycott for the second provisional legislative session, it would not “passively cooperate” with the KMT caucus on its proposals, Ker said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY VINCENT Y. CHAO
NOVEMBER ELECTIONS: The KMT urged the CECC to exclude Taiwanese from the arrivals cap, as they would lose their right to vote if they could not return by July 26 The COVID-19-related border control measures and the cap on the number of international arrivals are not being eased, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday as it reported 112 imported cases of the Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 of SARS-CoV-2. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is CECC spokesperson, said a meeting was held yesterday morning in which the Cabinet decided that current border control measures would remain in place. He said the main considerations were global COVID-19 cases increasing 21 percent last week, imported cases of Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 continuing to be detected
TIMING: 'The CHIPS Act funding is crucial for us. In other words, if the act’s passage is delayed for too long, we will certainly need to adjust,’ chairwoman Doris Hsu said GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓) plans to start construction on a US$5 billion wafer fabrication facility in Texas in November, after passage of the US$52 billion Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) for America Act. The fab would be the largest of its kind in the US and one of the largest in the world, with a monthly capacity of 1.2 million wafers, GlobalWafers said, adding that the investment would be the first new fab in the US in more than 20 years and critical to closing a semiconductor supply chain gap. The world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier said the project, which
Samsung Electronics Co yesterday commenced mass production of 3-nanometer chips that are more powerful and efficient than predecessors, beating rival Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to a key milestone in the race to build the most advanced chips in the world. South Korea’s largest company said in a statement that it was beginning with 3-nanometer semiconductors for high-performance and specialized low-power computing applications before expanding to mobile processors. By applying so-called Gate-All-Around transistor architecture, Samsung’s 3-nanometer products reduce power consumption by up to 45 percent and improve performance by 23 percent compared with 5-nanometer chips, it said. Samsung’s push to be first
Three to four tropical storms or typhoons are expected to hit Taiwan this year due to a weak La Nina effect in the northwest Pacific Ocean, the Central Weather Bureau (CWB) said yesterday, as typhoon season begins next month. Taiwan’s typhoon season generally lasts from July to September, with most typhoons occurring in August. Weather Forecast Center Director Lu Kuo-chen (呂國臣) told a news conference that a weakening La Nina is expected to have less of an effect on Taiwan. “The climate simulation we conducted, and those conducted by other meteorological agencies around the world, showed that the number of typhoons that
RSS