President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday that as the nation emerges from the global financial slump, it should strive for an economic recovery with “Taiwanese characteristics” by increasing employment, enhancing innovation, building a green economy and participating in regional economic integration.
In his opening remarks at this year’s CommonWealth Economic Forum in Taipei, Ma said this would be a year of recovery for Taiwan and that the nation should become a global center of innovation, an economic and trade hub for the Asia-Pacific region and a business headquarters for China-bound Taiwanese businesspeople.
“Our goal is to create Taiwanese economic values in Asia while bringing innovation to regional economic integration,” Ma told the two-day forum, which brought together local and international economists and entrepreneurs.
Ma addressed the importance of developing the service sector to boost domestic employment in the following year, noting that the nation’s rich-poor divide has widened over the past decade.
“We hope to achieve both equality and wealth,” Ma said. “Only when unemployment decreases can the public enjoy the fruits of economic recovery.”
Ma also proposed turning Taiwan into a “global innovation corridor” by harnessing its human resources, technology and ability to raise capital.
“Taiwan can serve as a test market in Asia for new high-tech products made by advanced countries to assess their market receptivity,” he said.
The government-proposed draft statute on promoting innovative industries would not only benefit high-tech sectors, but also traditional industries such as agriculture, Ma said.
“It is of great importance to think about how to market and promote Taiwanese products to the world,” he said.
Ma said the government would offer NT$25 billion (US$786 million) over the next five years to encourage the installation of renewable energy and energy conservation equipment, while budgeting another NT$20 billion to the research and development of alternative energy technology.
Besides promoting green industries, participating in regional economic integration was needed urgently because Taiwan and North Korea are the only countries in Asia that have been excluded, he said.
“We must join regional economic integration, or else our export market will be marginalized,” Ma said, adding that an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China was a necessity.
“Our trade with China has exceeded US$100 billion, but a systematic trade mechanism [with China] is still lacking. We will be cautious in establishing a comprehensive business system with China to increase our trade volume,” Ma said.
Ma said that after Taiwan signs an economic pact with China, barriers that Beijing places between the nation signing similar trade agreements with other countries would be reduced.
Also speaking at the economic forum, former Singaporean deputy prime minister Tony Tan (陳慶炎) said that although Asia is recovering from the global financial crisis, Asian financial development must find the right balance between the private sector and public management.
“My belief is that the next decade could be a ‘golden age’ for Asia. But seeing this become [a] reality requires Asia to adapt and innovate so it can overcome some difficult challenges,” Tan said.
Tan said these difficulties included dealing with short-term economic and financial risks, particularly avoiding “destabilizing asset bubbles,” and rebalancing domestic and external demand in growth models.
“The post-crisis environment will be different in at least three aspects: greater reliance on policymakers, the dominance of emerging markets and the relative underperformance of the developed world,” he said.
Tan pointed out that a key challenge for policymakers is how to properly time the withdrawal of monetary and fiscal stimulus policies.
“The recovery could be derailed if withdrawal is too early or too sharp,” he said.
Tan is deputy chairman of the Government of Singapore Investment Corp, a sovereign wealth fund. He said yesterday that over the next decade, Asia will hit a “tipping point” in which the influence of emerging markets on economic, financial and geopolitical issues will be significant.
“There will likely be bumps along the way, perhaps a few crises, but if we learn the right lessons from history, especially those of the recent financial crisis, we can re-tool and re-orientate ourselves to propel Asia into its next stage of development,” Tan said.
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