Taiwan’s per capita income could reach US$30,000 within four years on the back of strong domestic demand, Council for Economic Planning and Development Minister Christina Liu (劉憶如) told a legislative hearing yesterday.
Strong domestic growth rather than a focus on export growth could help Taiwan achieve the goal, Liu said in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲), who asked her to comment on President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) failure to deliver on his “6-3-3” pledge.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Ma pledged that under his administration, Taiwan would achieve 6 percent GDP growth, 3 percent unemployment and per capita income of US$30,000 — the latter by 2016.
Huang expressed skepticism that the per capita income target could be achieved when the level this year will barely exceed US$20,000 and growth next year is projected at between 2 percent and 3 percent.
“GDP growth for next year will not be about the 2 percent to 3 percent range, it will definitely be above 4 percent,” Liu said, citing the latest forecast by the IMF.
Forecasts for Taiwan’s economic growth were still the highest of the four Asian Tigers — Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong — she said, adding that the changing composition of growth would also play a positive role.
In the past, the domestic market contributed only 20 percent to 30 percent of the country’s GDP growth, but last year, when the economy grew at 10.8 percent, nearly 80 percent of national growth was driven by domestic demand, Liu said.
In other words, Taiwan would not have to achieve 10 percent growth four years in a row to meet the per capita income target, Liu said.
The government would also continue to expand infrastructure development to prop up domestic demand and GDP growth, Liu added.
Meanwhile, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) asked Liu whether she was concerned that DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) denial of the existence of the so-called “1992 consensus” could influence economic development.
Liu said that she was “very worried” because such a denial could ultimately negate the many cross-strait economic accomplishments achieved over the past three years.
“The ‘1992 consensus’ is a necessary priority. Without it, Taiwan would slip back into the old mode of [economic] isolation,” she said.
The “1992 consensus” refers to an understanding the KMT claims was reached between Taiwan and China that there is only “one China,” with each side free to interpret the meaning of “one China.”
The DPP, as well as former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), who was president at the time the consensus was allegedly reached, say such a consensus was never reached.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching