Paul Chiu doubts Cabinet's plan to stabilize market

Former finance minister Paul Chiu (邱正雄) yesterday suggested the new government should raise the level of the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC, 證期會) to institutionalize the mechanism for boosting the stock market.

The comments came in response to the Cabinet's proposal, raised on Monday, to use discretionary managed trading accounts as a means to shore up the stock market. Despite the plan, the TAIEX continued its slide Monday.

"The SFC should be chaired by a vice minister and should include members across party lines to maintain its neutrality and independence," Chiu said at a seminar yesterday held by a KMT think tank -- the National Development Council of China (中華國家發展協會) -- whose president is former KMT secretary-general John Chang (章孝嚴).

Chiu said that no Cabinet in the world was held responsible for propping up its country's stock market since fluctuations in the market would influence the direction of the Cabinet's policies and would cause political instability.

He also said that opening the discretionary managed trading account could only promote efficiency of capital management, not influence the stock market's stability.

During yesterday's seminar, DPP Legislator Shen Fu-hsiung (沈富雄) and government spokesman Su Tzen-ping (蘇正平) defended the new government against criticism made by attendants from opposition parties including KMT legislators Chu Li-luan (朱立倫), Lee Chia-chin (李嘉進) and Chiu Yi (邱毅), a research fellow at Chunghua Institute for Economic Research.

Chang, speaking in his capacity as chairman of the seminar, first warned the DPP not to underestimate the KMT's ability to call a no-confidence vote on the new Cabinet, which could trigger another round of Cabinet reshuffles.

In discussions that at times turned testy, Chu said that the DPP-led minority government lacked officials who would work for national policies based on their professionalism instead of simply push for policies that President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) favored.

In response to concerns over whether Vice Premier Lai In-jaw (賴英照) would be another Tang Fei (唐飛), who, attendants said, was seen as a "stone" weighing down the new government, Shen said that if Lai interacts with Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄) smoothly, Lai will not face calls for his resignation.

"There is no problem with the new Cabinet now; the only obstacle for the new government is the DPP itself," Shen said, adding that he had urged members of the DPP headquarters to hold "closed-door discussions and keep their mouths shut before any consensus was reached."

Su, on the other hand, argued that since Chen's government for "all the people" (全民政府) was a minority government, the difficulties that Chen is facing "are what the former KMT government left behind during its 50-year rule and require all political parties to work out solutions together."

Su said that cooperation was essential considering the fact that in the future, transfers of power would become common in Taiwan.