In a bid to retain residents and boost its vigor, Changhua County has raised its subsidy for new parents above those offered by some major municipalities.
Changhua County Commissioner Wei Ming-ku (魏明谷) on Friday last week announced the new figure — NT$30,000 per birth.
It reflects a campaign promise Wei made before his victory in the nine-in-one elections to revitalize the largely rural county.
Like elsewhere in Taiwan, young people in Changhua tend to head to special municipalities like Greater Taichung or Taipei to seek jobs.
“Children are our future, and if we do not try to solve the problem of population outflow, Changhua will become an aged county with falling tax revenue,” said Wei, a member of the Democratic Progressive Party.
“As of Jan. 1, parents will get the NT$30,000 subsidy for each newborn, once they have completed the child’s household registration.”
“No matter which town or village a family lives in, or how much subsidy it has received from township authorities, the county government will absolutely make up the difference to bring the total subsidy to NT$30,000,” he said. “That is higher than the amount offered in Taipei or Greater Taichung.”
The capital offers a one-time subsidy of NT$20,000 per newborn, as well as NT$2,500 per month for up to five years to eligible new parents, while Taichung, Taiwan’s third-largest city by population, offers NT$10,000 per newborn.
Wei pledged that he will honor all of his campaign promises over his four-year term, adding that the funds for the subsidy had been allocated by former Changhua county commissioner Cho Po-yuan (卓伯源) before his term ended on Dec. 24 last year.
Changhua County Social Affairs Department director Huang Shu-chuan (黃淑娟) said that as long as one of the newborn’s parents lives in the county and their household registration in the county has been uninterrupted for more than a year, the family is entitled to the subsidy.
Huang said that more than 11,000 babies were born in Changhua County last year.
More than 189,000 babies were born across the nation in the first 11 months of last year, Ministry of the Interior figures show.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai