A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmaker blasted the administration yesterday for increasing public debt to boost the economy after an international agency gave a negative rating on the NT dollar.
“The government should take it seriously and the public should understand the warning signs about the worsening government deficit,” DPP Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said at a press briefing.
The DPP caucus will ask the government to explain its -financial status at the next legislative -session, he said.
His remarks came one day after UK-based Fitch Ratings Ltd lowered Taiwan’s long-term New Taiwan dollar issuer default rating (IDR) from “AA” to “AA-” because of rising public debt since the beginning of the global financial crisis in 2008.
Fitch also forecast that Taiwan’s tax revenues would continue to remain at a low level this year and next year.
The Ministry of Finance responded that despite the downgrade, Fitch returned the outlook on the country’s long-term NT dollar IDR from “negative” to “stable.”
This recognizes the government’s medium and long-term efforts to improve the financial situation, the ministry said.
It also said that “increasing public debt to an appropriate extent for national development was a necessary action taken by the government.”
As of last month, the central and local governments owed a combined NT$5.991 trillion (US$206.34 billion) in at least one-year unpaid debts.
The figure has not yet exceeded the legal ceiling for public debt, the ministry said.
In addition, the ministry -expressed confidence that the tax revenue would be able to return to a normal level in the long run as the economy continues to grow and as Taiwan attracts more investment.
Meanwhile, Fitch yesterday downgraded CPC Corp, Taiwan’s long-term local currency IDR to “AA-” from “AA” and simultaneously revised its outlook to “stable” from “negative,” matching its downgrading move on Taiwan’s long-term NT dollar rating on Wednesday.
Taiwan’s exports soared 56 percent year-on-year to an all-time high of US$64.05 billion last month, propelled by surging global demand for artificial intelligence (AI), high-performance computing and cloud service infrastructure, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) called the figure an unexpected upside surprise, citing a wave of technology orders from overseas customers alongside the usual year-end shopping season for technology products. Growth is likely to remain strong this month, she said, projecting a 40 percent to 45 percent expansion on an annual basis. The outperformance could prompt the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
Two Chinese chipmakers are attracting strong retail investor demand, buoyed by industry peer Moore Threads Technology Co’s (摩爾線程) stellar debut. The retail portion of MetaX Integrated Circuits (Shanghai) Co’s (上海沐曦) upcoming initial public offering (IPO) was 2,986 times oversubscribed on Friday, according to a filing. Meanwhile, Beijing Onmicro Electronics Co (北京昂瑞微), which makes radio frequency chips, was 2,899 times oversubscribed on Friday, its filing showed. The bids coincided with Moore Threads’ trading debut, which surged 425 percent on Friday after raising 8 billion yuan (US$1.13 billion) on bets that the company could emerge as a viable local competitor to Nvidia
BARRIERS: Gudeng’s chairman said it was unlikely that the US could replicate Taiwan’s science parks in Arizona, given its strict immigration policies and cultural differences Gudeng Precision Industrial Co (家登), which supplies wafer pods to the world’s major semiconductor firms, yesterday said it is in no rush to set up production in the US due to high costs. The company supplies its customers through a warehouse in Arizona jointly operated by TSS Holdings Ltd (德鑫控股), a joint holding of Gudeng and 17 Taiwanese firms in the semiconductor supply chain, including specialty plastic compounds producer Nytex Composites Co (耐特) and automated material handling system supplier Symtek Automation Asia Co (迅得). While the company has long been exploring the feasibility of setting up production in the US to address
RSS