The government is considering taking steps to lower land and labor costs as incentives to attract Taiwanese businesspeople based in China, known as taishang, to return to invest in Taiwan, Vice Premier Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told legislators yesterday.
"The government will also devise stock market support measures to encourage the taishang to send their remittances from China to Taiwan," Tsai said.
Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) caucus whip David Huang (黃適卓) said that Tsai made the comments at a meeting in which they discussed means of implementing President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) "active management, effective opening" policy on cross-strait economic exchanges.
Invigorating the stock market and attracting China-based Taiwan businesspeople's capital to flow back into Taiwan will also be among the government's top priorities in promoting economic development, said Tsai, who doubles as the convener of the Cabinet's economic and financial task force.
Huang said Tsai agreed with the TSU's proposals to annul the regulation which stipulates minimum wages for immigrant laborers, and to provide tax incentives for taishang to shift their production bases from China back to Taiwan.
During their meeting, which was held at the Legislature Yuan, Tsai pledged to take swift action to protect traditional industries, although she added that local manufacturers should also take steps to improve their competitiveness.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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