The Presidential Office yesterday denied the controversial Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co (國光石化) project would definitely be built overseas because President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had yet to make a final decision on the matter.
Presidential Office spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) said that as Ma weighs the options, government agencies would “make preparations” for different scenarios, but he did not elaborate.
Ma has said he would make a decision before next year’s presidential election.
Lo made the remarks in response to a story in the Chinese-language China Times yesterday claiming that the Presidential Office and the Executive Yuan had decided that the petrochemical complex would be built in Indonesia.
Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) told a legislative committee on Wednesday the ministry was looking for possible overseas sites to house the planned NT$600 billion (US$20.7 billion) Kuokuang Petrochemical Park initiated by state-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油).
Shih said Taiwanese petrochemical investments had been expanding abroad because it was difficult to find a plot of land large enough to house such a park.
However, he ruled out China and the Middle East as possible sites and did not give a direct response when asked about Indonesia.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential hopeful Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has proposed that the petrochemicals industry be relocated to oil-producing countries in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia.
Such views were criticized by former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), who said it was difficult to decide whether the petrochemical industry should continue to exist in Taiwan because closing down oil refineries could cost tens of thousands of jobs.
Separately, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) yesterday said the government favored environmental protection over energy-intensive industrial projects when conflicts arise.
“[There is] no burden on [the government to decide on] the Kuokuang project. Priority should be given to environmental protection and sustainable development,” Government Information Office Deputy Minister Alice Wang (王麗珠) quoted Wu as saying at a press conference held following the weekly Cabinet meeting.
Wang quoted Wu as saying that Ma’s decision not to build steel plants was formulated on the principle that environmental and ecological protection be given equal consideration with economic and technological development, with the former taking priority in case of serious conflict.
“That should be the strategy applied to the Kuokuang project,” Wu was quoted as saying.
Wu has asked the Ministry of Economic Affairs, which has a 43 percent stake in the Kuokuang Petrochemical projects, to “prepare for any contingency.”
Wang said Wu also instructed the Environmental Protection Administration to strictly evaluate the environmental impact of the project and the Ministry of the Interior to decide whether to designate the selected site as a wetland off-limits for construction in accordance with regulations.
Kuokuang Petrochemical Technology Co in December elected to scale down the project from more than NT$900 billion to NT$600 billion and reduce its area from 2,773 hectares to 1,900 hectares to increase its chances of passing the second phase of its environmental impact assessment.
The oil refinery was planned to be built on reclaimed land off the mouth of the Jhuoshuei River in Dacheng Township (大城鄉), Changhua County, sparking many environmental concerns because the site is the second-largest wetland in the country and the construction would block the migration corridor of Taiwan’s endangered Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins.
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