Job creation, wealth distribution and upgrading industry, rather than an endless pursuit of GDP growth, should be the focus of Taiwan’s future economic policy, academics said at a symposium yesterday.
The panel of academics, most of whom served as Cabinet officials in the previous administration, warned against over-reliance on China to prop up the Taiwanese economy.
“Economic growth should not be the only national goal,” said Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), chairperson of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which organized the symposium on new economic development strategies in an era of globalization.
PHOTO: LIAO YAO-TUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
“The era of government allocating a large part of its resources to the support of the corporate sector in the hope of creating a better environment for the national workforce has long gone because corporates can now relocate overseas in a heartbeat,” she said.
While the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government is seeking closer economic relations with China on grounds that is a preliminary step to economic integration with the rest of the world, most of the working class in Taiwan is suffering as a result of wage stagnation and shrinking job opportunities, Tsai said.
Chen Po-chih (陳博志), an economist who serves as chairman of Taiwan Thinktank, supported this view and said the government tends to see management as the driving force for high GDP growth and it ignores the needs of ordinary people.
“It is management that has been reaping the benefits from the process of globalization while workers are suffering,” Chen said, adding that Taiwan can no longer gain a competitive edge by means of cheap labor.
Rising unemployment and lower wages are two of the biggest economic issues in Taiwan, said Liu Chin-hsin (劉進興), a professor at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. Liu urged the government to place job creation and the protection of traditional industries — especially the manufacturing sector — high on its economic agenda.
Taiwan should develop an innovation-based economy, support industry upgrade and restructuring and address the issue of wealth distribution so that it can improve its competitiveness and the well-being of its people, he said.
The triangular economic relationship between Taiwan, China and Western developed countries is a conflict of personal interests and macro-interests, which puts Taiwan in a no-win situation, said professor Shih Jun-ji, a former chairman of the Financial Supervisory Commission.
Instead of reaching out to the global market by way of China, Shih said, Taiwan should increase its national competitiveness and explore European and US markets on its own.
The DPP said the wide-ranging discussions at the symposium would be incorporated into its “10-year policy guidelines” which are scheduled to be announced in August.
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