Leaders from 21 Asia-Pacific economies were to meet yesterday to chart ways to boost trade despite turmoil in the global economy, as aspiring powers China and Russia bid farewell to US President George W. Bush.
A week after a 20-nation summit in Washington urged action to repair the crippled financial system itself, the Asia-Pacific summit was expected to focus on defending free trade as a way to kickstart slowing economies.
“There is a substantially advanced boutique industry called ‘gloom and doom' that is all about people saying how bad it is,” Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said.
“You can either be part and parcel of that process or you can take up the mantle of leadership and do something about it,” he said.
Ministers from the APEC forum set the stage for the summit with a joint call against protectionism, with some airing concerns that Bush's successor Barack Obama would be less supportive of free markets.
The tightly guarded summit in the Pacific coast city was the last scheduled foreign trip for Bush, who leaves office on Jan. 20 with his approval ratings hovering at all-time lows.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was scheduled to hold a potentially confrontational final summit with Bush yesterday. Medvedev will tour four countries in Latin America, traditionally Washington's sphere of influence, with arms deals on the cards.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted that Moscow was only selling defensive weapons to Latin America — a swipe at the Bush administration, which infuriated Russia with plans for a missile defense shield in former Soviet bloc countries.
Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) also sought a greater role in Latin America, but both sides described his final meeting with Bush on Friday as friendly and even sentimental.
Hu told Bush he appreciated the “advances in ties achieved in the past few years” and invited him to visit China after leaving office, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (劉建超) told reporters.
“He also expressed hope that the next US administration can recognize the importance of China-US ties,” Liu said in reference to Obama.
Bush allowed that he was “a little nostalgic” at his last meeting with Hu as head of state and highlighted stable relations with a rising China as a key achievement of his term.
However, Bush repeated his call for China to continue dialogue with representatives of Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama.
He also pressed for further action on ending North Korea's nuclear program, a key area where Bush has hoped to achieve progress before he hands the keys of the White House to Obama.
North Korea was expected to take center-stage when Bush holds a three-way summit in Lima with Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak.
Japan has tense relations with North Korea in part because of the communist state's past kidnappings of Japanese civilians. Aso on Friday lobbied Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet to join international efforts to isolate Pyongyang.
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The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
ECONOMIC COERCION: Such actions are often inconsistently applied, sometimes resumed, and sometimes just halted, the Presidential Office spokeswoman said The government backs healthy and orderly cross-strait exchanges, but such arrangements should not be made with political conditions attached and never be used as leverage for political maneuvering or partisan agendas, Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks after China earlier in the day announced 10 new “incentive measures” for Taiwan, following a landmark meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in Beijing on Friday. The measures, unveiled by China’s Xinhua news agency, include plans to resume individual travel by residents of Shanghai and China’s Fujian
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