The government’s debt is expected to reach NT$3.8 trillion (US$125.3 billion) by the end of this year, Shih Su-mei (石素梅), head of the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS), said yesterday.
Shih said this represented an increase of NT$1.4 trillion since the Democratic Progressive Party came to power in 2000.
Shih made the remarks after being asked to give an account of the government’s financial situation during a hearing at the legislature’s Finance Committee.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) said the government’s total debt has risen continuously over the past eight years to reach NT$4.6 trillion.
She said the amount translated into a public debt of NT$200,000 per capita.
If the government’s “hidden debt” — namely its financial obligations in labor insurance, farmers’ insurance, the pension system, privatization funds and financial reconstruction funds, to name a few — is added, the actual government debt would stand at about NT$13 trillion, Lo said.
Shih said that according to the Public Debt Law, the government debt stood at about NT$2.4 trillion in 2000, increasing by more than NT$1.4 trillion during the following eight years.
She said that if the debt of local governments, including townships and villages, was added, the total government debt would amount to about NT$4.4 trillion.
If other obligations, including the financial reconstruction fund and guaranteed loans for the high speed rail system, were taken into account, the government’s actual debt would be NT$12 trillion or NT$13 trillion, Shih said.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS