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Taiwan quick take

■Diplomacy
APEC team heads home
A delegation led by Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Yi-fu (林義夫) left Bangkok for home yesterday after taking part in an APEC ministerial-level meeting in Khon Kaen, Thailand. Lin and the other 18 delegates were waved off at the airport by Taipei's Representative to Thailand Paul Cheng (鄭博久). During the three-day APEC meeting, Lin held bilateral talks with his counterparts from Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Mexico and Papua New Guinea. He also met on two occasions with WTO Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi although he later claimed that their meetings were short. Lin made many proposals during the meetings, ranging from anti-terrorist efforts, regional trade security, the signing of free trade pacts and the protection of intellectual property rights, to a joint campaign to combat SARS.

■ Politics
Chen praises Yu
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday was upbeat on the performance of Premier Yu Shyi-kun on the economy as well as his efforts in fighting SARS.
The president made the remarks while traveling to Ilan to attend a traditional dragon boat festival. Chen said economic growth reached 3.54 percent last year, which was better than 2.4 percent in the US, 2.3 percent in Hong Kong, 0.3 percent in Japan and 0.2 percent in Germany. He also said that the nation's foreign exchange reserves increased by US$40 billion at the end of last year, which set a yearly increase record. Chen also spoke highly of the financial reforms and the performance of state-owned businesses under Yu's leadership. He said that domestic banks wrote off more than NT$413 billion (US$11.8 billion) in bad debts last year, and that state-owned enterprises also had outstanding performances, with only one enterprise losing money from the past where only four were making money.

■ Transportation
Traffic-ticket record set
Taiwan topped the world in terms of the number of traffic tickets received by each licensed motor vehicle last year, Tsai Chih-chung of the Central Police University said yesterday. Quoting tallies compiled by the National Police Administration, Tsai said traffic police issued more than 17.41 million traffic tickets last year. "This figure could be translated to 1.5 traffic tickets for each of the nation's 11 million drivers or motorcyclists who have received licenses," Tsai said, adding that the per capita figure was higher than that recorded in the US, Japan and Canada. NPA statistics further showed that traffic fines amounted to NT$18.87 billion (US$542.24 million) last year. "This means that each driver paid an average of NT$1,100 in traffic fines last year," Tsai said. According to Tsai, traffic fines have become an important financial source for city and county governments.

■ Health
WHO fails to deliver
The World Health Organization (WHO) has failed to follow through on a promise to give Taiwan a batch of test kits to help its fight against SARS, a health official said Tuesday. Ho Hsu-mei (許須美), deputy director-general of the Center for Disease Control under the Department of Health, said the WHO promised to provide Taiwan with a batch of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) kits and serological test kits when SARS was rampant in Taiwan last month, but the kits never arrived. Ho said her office has contacted the WHO many times to chase up the kits.
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