Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) officials yesterday briefed the legislature’s Finance Committee on the state of the economy and said civil servants would not get a pay raise this year, in part because of the possibility of an economic slowdown.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lin Te-fu (林德福) asked if the rise in consumer prices triggered by the increase in gas and electricity prices would affect the government’s anticipated 3.85 percent economic growth, and if the consumer’s price index (CPI) would exceed 2 percent.
Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics Minister Shih Su-mei (石素梅) said the 3.85 percent growth would hopefully be maintained throughout the year, but hikes in gas and electricity prices would have some impact on economic growth.
Since some revision to the economic growth figures in the first quarter would be required, we would lower that figure according, Shih said.
He also said that Premier Sean Chen (陳冲) had given clear orders for the administration to keep the CPI under 2 percent, adding that she was confident the government would be able to maintain that figure.
Lin asked if civil servants would be getting salary raises after Council of Labor Affairs Minister Jennifer Wang’s (王如玄) comments on Thursday last week that the minimum wage would be raised.
Saying that bureaucrats received a raise last year, Shih said another raise was not being considered, adding: “We would have to treat the issue of civil servant salary raises very carefully.”
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,