The central government’s debt remains within a normal range and has been increasing at a controllable rate, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said on Friday.
Wu made the remarks in response to criticism from Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮), who said the national debt had risen by NT$300 billion (US$9.24 billion) since the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regained power in May last year.
Wu said government debt had increased in the wake of the global financial crisis.
To counter the crisis, rekindle the sagging domestic economy and check unemployment, the government has launched a string of stimulus measures, including expanding infrastructure development, he said.
“The stimulus measures and new investments in turn have slightly increased government debt, but the growth of the debt has been within a controllable range,” he said.
Wu said debt had grown by around NT$222.5 billion over the past 15 months and that the administration had launched a number of measures to cut government spending, particularly spending deemed unnecessary.
He said the government had a budget shortfall of NT$145 billion so far this year. The shortfall is expected to remain within NT$190 billion for the entire year, he said.
Outstanding government debt will not exceed the legal ceiling even after the government borrows an additional NT$120 billion to finance reconstruction projects in the aftermath of Typhoon Morakot, Deputy Finance Minister William Tseng (曾銘宗) said late last month after the legislature passed a special statute authorizing the Executive Yuan to raise the special budget for post-disaster reconstruction.
Tseng said the government’s total outstanding debt was expected to be NT$4.1498 trillion at the end of this year, accounting for 32.87 percent of gross national product (GNP) over the last three years.
Compared with many countries, this is within a normal range, he said.
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