The Cabinet yesterday approved a proposal for the implementation of the “i-Taiwan 12 projects,” a major plank in President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) electoral campaign platform, which called for an investment of NT$3.99 trillion (US$123.8 billion) between this year and 2016.
Ma presented the project — designed to upgrade the country’s infrastructure — in November 2007 when running for last year’s presidential election.
The projects began to receive partial funding, or NT$170 billion, in this year’s government budget drawn up by former premier Liu Chao-shiuan’s (劉兆玄) Cabinet.
The budget for the rest of the projects will now be included in the government budget and will require legislative approval.
Asked why the subject was again put on the agenda of yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, Executive Yuan Spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) dismissed allegations that it was a ploy to boost the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) image ahead of next weekend’s local government elections.
“Elections have never been a factor when the government sets its policy agenda,” Su said.
Included in the projects are plans for a fast and convenient nationwide transportation network, the regeneration of the port of Kaohsiung, a central Taiwan high-tech industrial cluster, a Taoyuan international airport “air city,” industrial innovation corridors, urban and industrial park regeneration, farming village regeneration, coastal regeneration, reforestation efforts, flood prevention and water management plans, and sewer construction.
Su said that the government hoped to attract NT$1.2 trillion in investment from the private sector, while it would contribute a total of NT$2.79 trillion.
It has been estimated that the implementation of the plan will help boost Taiwan’s GDP by 2.95 percent and create 247,000 jobs.
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
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,