Defending his professional judgment, Vice Premier Lin Hsin-yi (
The TSU has demanded Lin's resignation, saying the documents upon which Lin based his decision during his stint as economics minister contained grave factual errors.
"I don't think the ministry had been fed false information," the vice premier said. "Moreover, the information [provided by Industrial Development Bureau] is purely for reference purposes and does not represent the government's final decision."
Lin made the remark while having lunch with reporters yesterday.
The government is due to make known its stance by the end of March on whether it will allow Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (
Until then, a 17-person task force -- consisting of industry representatives, government officials and academics -- will continue to meet and discuss the matter before presenting its recommendations to the Cabinet for final approval, Lin said.
However, TSU lawmakers on Wednesday questioned the accuracy of a report that had served as an important source for the decision to lift the ban.
They claimed that the report, prepared last December by the Industrial Development Bureau under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, was full of misleading information and untruthful statistics.
The party also called for Lin's resignation over the government's plan to allow Taiwanese firms to build eight-inch wafer plants in China.
In response, Lin told reporters he was not perturbed by the call since Taiwan is a democratic country where people are free to express their opinions.
Lin also explained why he did not inform his successor, Christine Tsung (
"I didn't receive the [written] report until mid-February, half a month after leaving office," Lin said. "However, I did tell her about Taiwan's overall water situation."
Commenting on the economy, the vice premier said there would be a steady but slow rebound by the end of the second quarter or the beginning of the third quarter.
"I expect to see this year's economic growth reach between 3.5 percent and 4.5 percent and the jobless rate drop from the current 5.2 percent to 4.2 percent by the end of the year," he said.
Lin also urged the corporate sector to speed up switching from labor-intensive industries to high value-added, high-tech industries to maintain Taiwan's technological edge.
Asked to comment on the capital flight across the Strait, the vice premier said it is unwise to focus attention on the development of only the information-technology industry.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not