The latest attempt by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to divest itself of its remaining illicit asset, Central Investment Co, fell flat again yesterday after no winner emerged during a public bid.
Central Investment Co chairperson Huang Yi-teng (黃怡騰) said only one company responded to the call for tenders, adding that they did not award the bid because the price offered was substantially lower than the set price.
The company has a net worth of about NT$20 billion (US$619 million) and is the last of the party’s controversial assets, following the sale of its Policy Research and Development Department, three media outlets and its former headquarters.
This was the fourth time bidding for Central Investment Co had failed. The previous occasion was in June last year when again there was only one bidder.
The party’s first two attempts were in 2006 and in February 2009.
Huang would not reveal the name of the bidding company in the latest round and said the bidding price was not raised.
He said another call for tenders would be held in the future, as this was a significant promise made by the KMT and the task to relinquish its party assets would top his company’s agenda this year.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who doubles as KMT chairman, has said the party would no longer run for-profit businesses.
As KMT Secretary-General King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) is stepping down from his post on Monday, Huang said they would brief his replacement, Presidential Office Secretary-General Liao Liou-yi (廖了以), on the matter.
As a trust company of the KMT, Central Investment Co would also determine what the party intends to do next following the failed bid so they can set a timetable for the unfinished business, Huang said.
Ma promised the KMT would rid itself of its ill-gotten assets when he first assumed the party chairmanship in 2005. The KMT sold the building housing the Policy Research and Development Department for NT$4.3 billion and three media assets — China Television Co, Broadcasting Corp of China and the Central Motion Picture Co — to the China Times Group for NT$9.3 billion in 2005.
Ma, who promised in December 2009 that the party would propose a final solution for assets the KMT stole during the Martial Law era, said this did not mean the KMT would no longer have any assets.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods