To recreate the nation’s “economic miracle,” President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday that his government would increase the National Development Fund to NT$1 trillion (US$31.25 billion) and use the money to invest in the “2.5 industry,” a business straddling the manufacturing and service sectors.
“When we are able to reduce the external risk, we are much more able to create maybe a new miracle for Taiwan’s economy,” Ma said in English while addressing an international forum on capital venture at the International Convention Center in Taipei.
Ma said the rapid decline in the country’s manufacturing industry was a serious matter. About 20 years ago, Ma said the manufacturing industry represented 40 percent of the total economy, but the figure has gone down to 22 percent, while in other countries such as South Korea and Singapore it accounts for about 30 percent.
“Certainly, we are very interested in developing our service industry, but the manufacturing industry continues to be the biggest providers [sic] of jobs in our economy,” he said. “So we hope in the future we could develop our manufacturing industry in the form of something between the secondary industry. People sometimes call it the ‘2.5 industry.’ It’s not second, it’s not third. It’s in-between. It’s a very professional service industry between manufacturing and service.”
Ma said the government would augment the National Development Fund from NT$200 billion to NT$1 trillion, adding that the money would be invested in strategic industries. The “2.5 industry” would be the potential target, he said.
Ma said the country had felt the pinch of the global economic downturn and that its economic growth rate had slowed in the third quarter.
The current quarter and the first quarter of next year are expected to see negative growth, he said.
“But we are relatively confident that we would make a comeback sometime [in] the latter part of next year,” he said. “We are pretty confident that the fundamentals of our economy remain sound. Our foreign exchange reserve stands at US$280 billion. The most important thing is that we have very little foreign debt.”
Among the government plans to stimulate the economy, Ma said the infrastructure construction project package aimed at increasing domestic demand and the distribution of the NT$3,600 in consumer vouchers is estimated to boost the GDP by 0.64 percent next year.
They are also mapping out a new proposal, dubbed “forward-looking domestic market,” he said, with the object of creating a better environment for industries of mobile and wireless communications and new-generation display technology.
Ma said “how the greater Chinese area in this part of the world performs” will be important.
“I’m sure with our efforts that I described above, we will be able to get us out of this situation next year, hoping to create another economic boom,” he said. “But I know we still have a long way to go and many battles to fight.”
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
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