The nation’s poor economic and trade performance in the first half of the year is a warning that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) should stop “putting all eggs in one basket” and change his China-dependent economic policy, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers said yesterday.
Exports last month contracted for a fourth consecutive month from a year ago, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Finance on Monday, DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) told a press conference.
With cumulative exports in the first half of the year dropping 4.7 percent from a year ago, Taiwan fared much worse than China, which saw exports rise 8.7 percent, while the US, Japan and Singapore recorded increases of 7 percent, 5.8 percent and 4.1 percent respectively, she said.
Taiwan checked in at second to bottom in a global ranking of foreign direct investment (FDI) last year, with FDI dropping by US$1.96 billion from 2010, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development, she added.
“Didn’t Ma tell us that Taiwanese exports and foreign investments would increase after signing the ECFA [Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement] with China? Didn’t he tell us that free-trade agreements with other trade partners would follow after the ECFA?” she asked.
Those poor trade numbers are the result of Ma’s wrong policies, Chen said.
While the global economy has been slow in recovering, “it does not make sense that Taiwan would fare so poorly in its trade when almost everyone else is registering healthy numbers,” DPP Legislator Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) said.
“Even a Ministry of Economic Affairs official admitted that it is risky for Taiwan to have more than 38 percent of its investment in China and Hong Kong. It is a slap in the face of Ma,” Lee said.
Lee urged Ma to adjust his China-centric policy and shift the focus to other regions in the world.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs official yesterday said that a delegation that visited China for an APEC meeting did not receive any kind of treatment that downgraded Taiwan’s sovereignty. Department of International Organizations Director-General Jonathan Sun (孫儉元) said that he and a group of ministry officials visited Shenzhen, China, to attend the APEC Informal Senior Officials’ Meeting last month. The trip went “smoothly and safely” for all Taiwanese delegates, as the Chinese side arranged the trip in accordance with long-standing practices, Sun said at the ministry’s weekly briefing. The Taiwanese group did not encounter any political suppression, he said. Sun made the remarks when
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
BROAD AGREEMENT: The two are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff to 15% and a commitment for TSMC to build five more fabs, a ‘New York Times’ report said Taiwan and the US have reached a broad consensus on a trade deal, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations said yesterday, after a report said that Washington is set to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent. The New York Times on Monday reported that the two nations are nearing a trade deal to reduce Taiwan’s tariff rate to 15 percent and commit Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to building at least five more facilities in the US. “The agreement, which has been under negotiation for months, is being legally scrubbed and could be announced this month,” the paper said,
MIXED SOURCING: While Taiwan is expanding domestic production, it also sources munitions overseas, as some, like M855 rounds, are cheaper than locally made ones Taiwan and the US plan to jointly produce 155mm artillery shells, as the munition is in high demand due to the Ukraine-Russia war and should be useful in Taiwan’s self-defense, Armaments Bureau Director-General Lieutenant General Lin Wen-hsiang (林文祥) told lawmakers in Taipei yesterday. Lin was responding to questions about Taiwan’s partnership with allies in producing munitions at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. Given the intense demand for 155mm artillery shells in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, and in light of Taiwan’s own defensive needs, Taipei and Washington plan to jointly produce 155mm shells, said Lin,
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