The nation's economic prospects are very promising, with economic growth expected to reach 4.5 percent and unemployment to drop to 4.25 percent next year, a ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator said yesterday.
Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯), DPP legislative caucus whip, made the remarks in response to claims by Legislative Yuan Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) that the DPP has done a bad job in administering the country, especially in terms of the economy.
According to Tsai, the economic growth rate of Taiwan dropped to around 5 percent during the time that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was in power, and the first term of President Chen Shui-bian (
However, the country has managed to create a "new miracle" by seeing its foreign reserves double despite the global recession, Tsai said.
He said Taiwan has survived the recession and is now ready to welcome a promising future.
While economic growth is estimated at 4.5 percent next year, the unemployment rate is expected to fall to 4.25 percent, he added.
Wang yesterday criticized the DPP as performing poorly in administering the country, claiming the problem will worsen if the party gains majority control in the legislature in Saturday's elections.
Wang, who is also a vice chairman of the KMT, blamed the DPP for sending Taiwan's economic growth plummeting to 5.27 percent from the 9 percent registered during KMT rule.
While one million people have migrated to China, two million people are on the verge of unemployment, and the gap between rich and poor is widening, Wang said.
Wang further accused the DPP of squandering taxpayers' money, saying the DPP government has spent NT$8.2 trillion (US$254.65 billion) in five years, compared with only NT$5.7 trillion during the previous five years in which the KMT ruled.
Refuting the DPP's claim that the pan-blue camp is hampering the country's development by being antagonistic toward the government, Wang said the opposition-controlled legislature passed nearly 600 legislative bills in the past five years, which he said is even more effective than the time when the DPP was in the opposition.
Furthermore, Wang said the DPP's maneuvering on ethnic issues has severely divided Taiwan society and that the DPP's provocative manner in handling cross-Taiwan Strait relations is giving the country a negative outlook.
Wang said the pan-blue camp must maintain majority control in the legislature to ensure the security of Taiwan.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods